Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. The future of energy in Ireland is renewable. That is the safest, most secure and cheapest way to provide for our energy needs in the long term. We need renewable energy, backed by interconnection to Britain and Europe, and mass battery storage in Ireland. That transition is very much under way. It is happening all around us, all over the country, such as the wind farms, battery storage in the midlands and the interconnector between Ireland and France. Work is very much under way and that is very much the future.

In the meantime, we will need oil and natural gas. We have good oil storage already, about a 30-day supply if needed. As the Deputy knows, some of that is in Cork. When it comes to natural gas, we have essentially two sources. One is the Corrib gasfield off Mayo, which will run out, and the other comprises the interconnectors between Ireland and the UK. In light of what has happened to interconnectors, gas pipes and telecommunication terminals around Europe in the past year or so, we have had to revisit our policy because we have seen gas pipelines destroyed and damaged, not just in Denmark but also between Estonia and Finland. We believe that reliance on the interconnector from the UK is too big a risk and a risk we have to mitigate.

We have not come down definitively on whether there will be floating or fixed gas storage. That is still open for consideration. We have asked Gas Networks Ireland to do further work in that regard. That will be done over the course of the next six months. It will be expensive, but the cost will be spread over a long period of time in the form of a levy on bills, similar to the one we have for the National Oil Reserves Agency, NORA, when it comes to oil, petrol and diesel storage. Whatever we do will be State led. The Government has made that decision. That does not mean that there is not a role to play for the private sector, whether through public-private partnerships or contracting the expertise we need and which we do not have in the State sector, but it will be State led and commissioned.

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