Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

What I heard from the Minister of State is that this is technical and this is not a Bill to amend the objectives, but that is what we are trying to do through the amendment. We are trying to make it such a Bill and are taking the opportunity to change its objectives. The Minister of State is telling us not to worry about that because those objectives are already covered. However, will he explain to me how and why GNI responded to the Minister, Deputy Ryan, to say it was mandated under the Gas Act to supply connections to third parties? That was in response to the Minister saying it should not be connecting these data centres directly.

I will quote from a letter from the Climate Change Advisory Council, CCAC, to the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action, dated 16 October 2023, where it is absolutely clear:

On this basis, the Minister for the Environment ... wrote to Gas Networks Ireland (GNI) indicating it would not be appropriate for the organisation to sign any more contracts to connect data centres to the gas network where the data centre would be powered mainly by on-site fossil fuel generation. It is the Council’s understanding that GNI responded to say that it was mandated under the Gas Act to supply connections to third parties.

Is the understanding of the CCAC wrong? Was GNI wrong? What happened here? The Minister of State is telling me not to worry, we have the climate Bill and GNI has to stay in line with it, but GNI is reported to be saying it has a mandate to keep adding more connections to the grid. That is what it is doing in practice as well. It is adding connections and locking more and more people into fossil fuels. Something does not add up. I really do not understand. Even if it were a case of, "Don't worry, it's already covered", that would be fine. There is no harm in changing it and taking a belt and braces approach. Let us make sure GNI, at its heart, has the vision of a transition away from fossil fuels.

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