Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is a failure on the Minister’s part and on that of his Department that this is being rushed through on this Stage without any proper debate. For something that will have such a large impact on people and society across the board, it is wrong that this is happening.

LNG is hugely polluting. We all know that. It does not even address the potential challenges given this will take years to build even before the LNG storage can go ahead. Gas demand is declining but we will be sitting with this infrastructure in the Shannon Estuary, which could be on the seabed or under it. This is infrastructure that will end up high and dry. It will not be necessary because, hopefully, if things continue, we will have moved on from this and have wind power and so on, which will do away with the need for LNG to go ahead.

Then there is the issue of breaching EU and international law and the Aarhus Convention and the right of people to participate in the process. The Minister has completely ignored that, as I outlined earlier. That is the problem. I wanted to make that contribution now. I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for her indulgence. I know it might not be particularly relevant to amendments Nos, 1 to 18, inclusive-----

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