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

I have a fixation on climate change, and if the Minister's point is that I have a fixation on fossil fuels, yes, I do, because fossil fuels are what is driving the vast majority of climate change. He is proposing, as Minister for the environment, who has responsibility for climate action, to import the dirtiest fossil fuel possible. That is what he is proposing. He is saying now to not worry. He is not saying it is not going to be US fracked gas because he is correctly saying we cannot draw a distinction, which the previous Government tried to mislead people about by saying we could have LNG and to not worry because it would not be fracked gas. The Minister is admitting it could well be fracked gas, but he is not able to tell me that it is not going to be US fracked gas. I ask him to say on the record that this will not be US fracked gas. He knows that of course it is going to be US fracked gas. What else is it going to be? Incredibly, by not answering the question the Minister is telling me he has not conducted any studies in this regard. The Howarth paper was a key factor in the Biden Administration's decision to bring in a moratorium on new US LNG export facilities in January 2024. That was reversed by Trump, who is a climate denier. In changing the policy here to allow US fracked gas imports, the Government is aligning itself with Trump and climate denial.

The Minister needs to deal with the reality of the science of what the impact of fracked gas is. This is the dirtiest fossil fuel possible and the Minister has not commissioned any research or any evidence to suggest that is not the case. He thinks it is fine, and that we are going to run through this five or six times per year in our so-called strategic reserve that is going to displace even other gas as the dirtiest fossil fuel.

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