Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I know others have already spoken in general about the process. Indeed I spoke about it this morning. It is really concerning to see that we have only three hours to debate 177 pages. I am just looking at the groupings we have been given. Even if we just look at the groupings, we can see 31 groupings of amendments and we are still only on the first grouping 45 minutes into what is only a three-hour guillotined debate. It is really unfortunate because these are new amendments that the Dáil has not had a chance to debate before. I know the Minister will say some are technical but many are not. There is real concern not only among those of us in opposition. Concern has also been expressed by groups like An Taisce and Friends of the Earth about particular aspects of the amendments before us. Regarding the amendments that relate to the Aarhus Convention, we know An Taisce says the Bill is out of compliance under the Aarhus Convention. An Taisce and others have set out concerns about rights to public participation and access to justice within the sections of the Bill.

I will focus on the amendments relating to LNG infrastructure because that is where real concern has to focus. These are amendments that look to open a door to fast tracking the construction of LNG terminals at a time when we have just had a High Court decision that really places Government's stated policy on LNG into uncertainty. It casts doubt on it. We saw the decision of Mr. Justice Richard Humphreys on 30 September. At this time, we see the Government bringing in this amendment without adequate time for debate. We like other parties have amendments down seeking that the Government would withdraw the specific reference to the terminals from its amendment. I see our amendments are in group seven so we may not get to those. That would be of real concern because while the Minister for the Environment, Climate Action and Communications has said he does not think commercial LNG terminals would be developed during the lifetime of this Government, this Government has a very short period of time left to go and if this amendment from Government is passed, we cannot be sure that it will not open a door to the development of commercial LNG terminals in the future. This is a real concern. Polls conducted by Friends of the Earth show that significant public opposition to the construction of such terminals.

The bottom line is this. Why are we, through this amendment, embedding our reliance on a dirty fuel - a fossil fuel - into the future long term? If this is about energy security, surely the Government must accept that it would take so long to construct such a terminal that it is simply not practical to say this is in keeping with any urgent requirement of energy security. We should and will have developed greatly enhanced renewable energy capacity in the time it would take to construct the LNG facility. I have real concerns about this amendment. All of us are receiving significant levels of correspondence from individuals and organisations that are concerned about Government amendments on LNG. I ask the Minister to withdraw his amendments and take on board the Opposition amendments that have been put forward in good faith seeking to remove that designation as strategic infrastructure from LNG terminals.

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