Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Gas (Amendment) Bill. It is a short, technical Bill that provides for the transfer of all functions for the national gas infrastructure from the current company, Ervia, to a new publicly-owned entity, called Gas Networks Ireland, GNI.

When it comes to the gas market or the energy market more generally, the Government needs to do a whole lot more to deliver the overlapping aims of addressing sustainability and climate change, bolstering energy security and resilience and creating a just and affordable system. The facts, while stark, are simple. The cost of energy is sky high and out of line with the rest of Europe. Arrears are spiking, with the latest figures from the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, indicating that one in eight households are unable to pay their bills. Energy poverty impacts on one in three homes. Moreover, Ireland is failing miserably to deliver renewables at a pace that would see us reach our 2030 targets, meaning the State continues to be overly reliant on gas imports. This not only impacts on Ireland's capacity to deliver a sustainable energy market, but it also scuppers any hopes of becoming energy independent and a world leader in renewables exports. A brilliant opportunity is at real risk of being completely squandered.

In addition, our security of supply is uncertain. The delay in finalising the energy security review combined with an extremely strained grid and insufficient generation capacity have produced a situation in which there is genuine risk of the lights going out. The fact that ordinary workers and families are paying some of the most expensive energy prices in Europe, yet could be subject to blackouts is frankly outrageous. The fact the risk remains after the unprecedented number of system alerts that were issued last winter makes it clear that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party have fallen asleep at the wheel. It should be noted that decades of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael led Governments produced these problems in the first place. I will consider each of these issues in turn because it is essential the Government is held to account. It must recognise the scale of its mishandling of Ireland's energy system and the impact it is having on ordinary workers and families.

I will turn to Ireland's security of energy supply. Last year a number of factors combined to produce an extremely worrying situation for Ireland's energy supply. This was compounded by the fact that successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael led Governments have failed to secure Ireland’s energy independence, leaving us overly reliant on gas imports and therefore excessively exposed to shocks in international markets. International shocks can and will happen. Therefore it is essential that policies are future-proofed and that sufficient plans are put in place. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael seemed to have missed this point.

We do not even have a full picture of the scale of the problem and the range of policy options available to address it. The Government has been promising to publish the long-awaited and much-delayed security of supply review in the next few weeks for more than six months. The McCarthy report, conspicuously, is also yet to be published. The way the Government is acting, one might think everything is under control. This is far from the case. EirGrid issued more system alerts last year than ever before and did so at a pace that was unprecedented and alarming. Another alert was issued in June by EirGrid which warned of temporary electricity supply issues due to the low availability of renewable energy and unplanned outages of a number of conventional generation units. The mismatch between supply and demand is yet another example of the Government’s failure to plan. It is widely accepted that Ireland has a generation capacity issue. The latest EirGrid and System Operator Northern Ireland, SONI, capacity outlook predicted "a challenging outlook for Ireland with capacity deficits identified during the 10 years to 2031” and that “in the short term the deficits will increase due to the deteriorating availability of power plants, resulting in their unavailability ahead of intended retirement dates". Just last week the media reported that industry sources stated that Ireland’s generation capacity on the electricity grid is to remain tight this winter and supply is likely to be stretched. The only reason the Government might get away with this is the milder weather this year. The fact the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, is relying on the climate crisis to avoid catastrophic black outs is frankly astounding.

In terms of a failure to plan, Ireland’s electricity demand is significantly skewed by data centres in the Dublin region. Last year, data centres consumed 18% of all the electricity generated here and increased their power consumption by an astounding 31%. This means they now account for almost one fifth of all electricity consumed. Just seven years ago, this figure stood at 5%. To put this in context, overall energy consumption has risen by 20% in the past seven years, whereas for data centre consumption has risen by an eye-watering 400% in the same period. The situation we find ourselves in is the inevitable outcome of years of reckless mismanagement of our energy system by successive Governments. Runaway electricity demand was accompanied by a failure to deliver much-needed supply.

Ireland’s gas network and our security of supply is also threatened due to the despicable treatment of the ordinary workers given the responsibility of maintaining the network. GMC Utilities Group workers are engaged in industrial action at this time, not because they want to be, but because they have to be. These workers maintain Ireland’s critical infrastructure. They keep our lights on and our houses warm. This is essential work. I stood with them at the picket line in Ballycoolin last Friday and discussed these issues. Make no mistake, these workers are doing the work of Gas Networks Ireland, the body today’s Bill seeks to reform. The fact is, GMC is outsourcing the jobs and refusing to implement agreed pay proposals and GNI and the Minister remain silent. This is unacceptable. What does the Minister of State say about the situation? Will he or the senior Minister intervene? Will the senior Minister instruct GNI to intervene? It is essential that workers are treated fairly and that they are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. The Government must do all in its power to ensure this issue is resolved immediately, pay proposals are implemented and gas supply is not disrupted.

All these issues point to a Government that does not seem to think it is a priority to ensure that Ireland’s energy supply is secure and that ordinary workers and families can continue to heat and light their homes this winter. That is a major problem. It is also clear it does not think it is a priority to address Ireland’s sky-high costs. According to the Central Bank's quarterly economic bulletin released last week, prices in Ireland are falling more slowly than other EU states. While we have seen some small price decreases recently, they go nowhere near far enough. According to the CRU, the average price increase for domestic customers between 2021 and 2022 was 76% for electricity and 100% for gas. In 2022, Ireland had the third-highest household electricity prices and the seventh-highest household gas prices. The average bill is now more than €2,000. This is astronomically high. A bill of €600 would have been unusual previously whereas now it has become a common occurrence. This is leading to insurmountable levels of debt for people.

Just two days ago the latest CRU figures on arrears demonstrated that there had been a considerable increase between the first and second quarters of this year. The figures are shocking. In the period up to June, 423,889 homes were in arrears. That is nearly half a million homes in arrears. This represents an overall spike of almost 18,000 since May, when I last raised the alarm on this issue. Alarmingly, the percentage of households in arrears jumped from 9% to 12% between the first and second quarters of the year. To put that into context, it means that nearly one in every eight homes across the State is in arrears. The situation is especially worrying for domestic gas customers, with almost one quarter of them in arrears. The figure is up around 8,000 on the figure for the previous quarter. It is important to remember that these increases occurred in the warmest, lightest months of the year and that we are facing into the coldest and darkest. People are rightfully anxious about the period ahead.

The disconnection figures are equally stark. The number of people who had their utilities cut off skyrocketed by 173% for electricity and 97% for gas in 2022 compared with 2021. While the Government is content merely to comment on this issue, Sinn Féin has an actual plan. We have introduced legislation to ensure that the regulator is fit for purpose, giving it additional powers to oversee hedging, which is frequently cited as the reason for the lag in price decreases, and, furthermore, to investigate possible instances of anticompetitive behaviour. Significantly, our legislation would also mandate the CRU to consider specifically the affordability of energy in its policy direction, as well as the power to regulate standing charges, neither of which it is currently mandated to do. I call on the Government to urgently introduce these measures in order that ordinary workers, families and hard-pressed businesses get the relief they so desperately need.

Turning to the issue of sustainability, gas remains the dominant force in Ireland's energy mix. Figures released last month show that 49% of Ireland's electricity was generated using natural gas. Shockingly, that figure represents a 9% increase from the same period last year. This flies in the face of the Government's energy-efficiency plans and targets. How does the Government plan to ensure that Ireland is not locked into gas use in the future? I raise in particular Gas Networks Ireland's latest five-year revenue proposal and I ask the Minister for his response to it, especially given the stated ambition to grow gas demand into the 2030s.

On that, the pace of the roll-out of renewables is just far too slow. This Government lacks the pace and ambition such a roll-out deserves. Yesterday's disastrous onshore renewables auction is further proof that this Government just does not have a clue what is going on in the sector and that Ireland's ambition to become energy-independent is slipping through our fingers. These results are an absolute disaster; there is no other way of putting it. We raised this with the Minister last week. The RESS auctions are a key Government policy to deliver the climate action plan. If this is the level at which they are delivering, Ireland will come nowhere near our 2030 targets. Shockingly, this auction returned the highest bid price yet at a staggering €100.47 per MWh. We are travelling in completely the wrong direction. RESS 1 and RESS 2 returned bid prices of €97.87 and €74.08, respectively. If we compare Ireland in an international context, we are lagging way behind. The most recent onshore auction in Britain, AR5, concluded with contracts awarded, in 2012 prices, for onshore wind of £52.29. Converting that to euro and accounting for inflation since 2012 works out at €82.74. This means that Ireland is woefully uncompetitive in an international context. To add insult to injury, the latest RESS round has delivered the smallest volume of renewable energy of any auction to date. Just three wind farms were awarded contracts in the Government auction at a total capacity of 148.4 MW. Solar did not fare much better, with just 497.6 MW of solar capacity emerging from the process. This represents a significant drop when compared with previous results. In RESS 2, 414 MW of wind capacity and more than 1.5 GW of solar was delivered. In RESS 1, 796 MW of solar was delivered, with 480 MW of wind having cleared. Yesterday's result represents nearly a 28% drop from RESS 1 and a 33% drop from RESS 2.

What on earth is the Government playing at? It is great at setting lofty targets and dressing them up in fluffy rhetoric but it is completely failing to deliver. We urgently need a cost-of-renewables task force to address this issue. That is something industry stakeholders have called for. Sinn Féin produced legislation on this last year, yet the Government has patently refused to adopt our proposals. We have also called for increased resources for An Bord Pleanála to deal with the extensive delays in the planning system. The average time for a decision on an application or appeal related to a wind energy project is now over 90 weeks. Since the end of September 2022, no onshore wind energy project has been granted planning permission by An Bord Pleanála. This is simply not good enough. The people of Ireland deserve better from this Government. They deserve better than what it is capable of delivering. Sinn Féin is ready to deliver. Time and again this Government has proven its negligence and its incompetence. It is high time for change.

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