Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We understand that the Government must keep the lights on and that it is important, if it is justifiable in those reports, that the reserve must be in place. The Government, however, also has a responsibility to ensure that costs do not spiral out of control. To take the experience in Germany, when it introduced its strategic LNG reserve it invested heavily in four terminals in 2022, following the outbreak of the Ukraine war. Rather than bringing prices down, however, they have increased by 43%. The reality is that if there is too much of a commercial element, or any commercial element, costs will spiral out of control because the cost of LNG has been rising. As regards the FSRUs in Germany, they have had to double the initial investment and fork out €5 billion in state aid. Ireland will be exposed to this, we will miss our 2030 targets, there will be fines as a result and, in the meantime, if we are dependent on gas reserves, the costs of bills will go up in advance of 2030.

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