Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to be associated with the comments about the former TD, Dan Wallace.

The Taoiseach said he spoke about climate resilience with Keir Starmer. Just as the war in Ukraine showed how exposed this country is to the vagaries of the international energy market, the recent storm exposed how ill prepared we are to deal with the consequences and our resilience in terms of climate change. The Taoiseach does not need me to tell him about the 750,000 people who were without power or particularly the people in the Brosna area in Kerry who were without power as a result of the snow, some of whom have had up to 20 power cuts in the last calendar year.

Recent Governments have failed to prepare Ireland’s electricity grid and network to withstand these types of extreme weather events. I think everyone can agree with that. As a result we are reliant on other countries such as Keir Starmer’s Britain to provide things like back-up generators. While we appreciate their generosity, we have been left at the mercy of others. Were any concrete steps discussed to reinforce our back-up generation capacity? Can the Taoiseach provide an update on the development of any long duration energy storage to build our climate resilience? Similarly, we have become over-reliant on Britain and rather than developing our own potential we have been dependent on British energy imports. Did the Taoiseach discuss the impact of this mechanism with Keir Starmer?

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