Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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92. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the Government’s position in respect of the siting of a liquefied natural gas terminal in Ireland; the way that such a project would be permitted in the State while at the same time meeting Ireland’s Paris Agreement obligations and climate action targets announced in the climate action plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19087/22]

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Minister was quoted inThe Irish Timeslast week as making an astonishing statement in which he left open the door for the introduction of LNG or nuclear power in order to deal with this crisis. Is it his position as Minister and that of the Green Party in government to allow this country to be tied into the use of LNG, which would basically mean a reliance on another type of fossil fuel for approximately 30 years?

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I thank the Deputy. I will read out the formal response and then come back to her on the issue she has just raised.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I tabled a question on the Question Paper and I would like the Minister to answer it, rather than answering the question that is in his head.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The written response I have is in answer to the Deputy's written question. If she would prefer, I will focus on the specific issue she has just raised orally. I have been involved with energy policy for approximately 20 years in this House.

At various stages down through the years I have said that one should always look at all options in respect of nuclear power. I do not believe we will turn to nuclear because it is too expensive, as we have a more competitive comparative advantage with regard to our own renewable power supplies. One should never rule out options, however, as choices are always made on best energy solutions, together with the economic and environmental benefits.

Similarly, with regard to gas and liquefied natural gas, LNG, I have made my position clear over the years. We have to avoid the risk of having stranded assets. The investment, the new future, particularly in the gas sector, I see as coming in the conversion of that renewable power that we have into hydrogen supplies. Those will be the investments into the future.

Over the years we have made some very specific decisions which I believe are the correct ones and which include not proceeding with fracked gas in our country or with oil and gas exploration because of that risk of stranded assets and the climate imperative of switching away from such fossil fuels.

I reiterate what I have been saying over the years which is that we never rule out any options. One always looks at what is strategically best for the country and our people, and considers all options, but I will obviously inform the policy process with my own views.

There is an issue around gas storage in Europe at the present time and the war has changed everything. I have been talking to the Deputy’s colleagues, Deputy Boyd Barrett and others, who are saying that this crisis has not been caused by the war but I believe that it has been, particularly the energy crisis aspect of it. What we have seen over the past year is that Russia has been scaling back its export of gas and increasing its own storage. We have a situation now where Europe is very low on gas storage and Russian gas storage is very high. We have to look at all options within that European framework.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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A couple of things arise from the Minister’s comments. It will come as a major surprise to many of the Minister’s party members and the climate movement that he has said over the years that we have to keep all options open, including nuclear power. Over the years, what I have heard from the Minister, particularly as he considers himself a leader of the climate movement, is that we have to keep fossil fuels in the ground and that we must do this in order to reach Paris Agreement targets, to reduce our emissions and to take radical action. What the Minister is saying now is quite the reverse. He is leaving the door open to any form of power in the current climate, which he has just repeated there.

I find it contradictory, however, that his colleague, Deputy Hourigan, who is sitting in the Chamber now, has put forward a Bill to ban LNG facilities in the future. It is almost as if the Minister is saying that we may have to put up with one facility at Shannon, or possibly a State-led one, but in the future we are not going to have them. We need clarity from the Minister as to his position on this. It is unfair to the movement and to the Deputies in this House, who, like the Minister, are passionate and concerned about climate change, to have to try to figure out what the official position of the Government and of the Minister is in tying this country to a fossil fuel future.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Over the years, I have always made perfectly clear the importance of looking at every option and not being afraid of debate. Debate is, in fact, the most important and rigorous thing that one needs in order to assess all of the options. If one goes into such a debate saying that one will never discuss nuclear or gas storage in any format whatsoever, how will we then arrive at an informed debate and make the case that this is the correct way to go?

As I said, the war has changed everything in that we are going to switch away from that Russian gas. To put the debate in that wider context, that is a very significant issue in Europe where a very significant percentage of up to a half of gas use is coming from that source. Making the switch will be difficult. Different countries will have different approaches. Some countries, such as Germany, seem to be looking at the introduction of new energy terminals. I believe we will be in a different position because, as I said, the physics of the gas network we are connected to, with the UK and Norwegian gas and our own gas supply, puts us in a very different position from other countries.

There are a whole variety of different aspects to that, including the fact we do not have gas storage on the island. We have always said we are willing to discuss the likes of gas storage in the Kinsale gas field, salt caverns or other possible options. We said we will look at those options in an energy security review. That is what we are doing and in that context, we cannot look at the options while saying that we are never going to consider one or the other.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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With all due respect to the Minister, and it is not my intention to insult him as I love debate and this is part of that debate, he has changed his position fundamentally by saying that we will leave the door open to LNG and to other forms of gas storage importation and the possibility of nuclear power. This is an extraordinary position that the Minister is presenting as a Green Party leader and a Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications with responsibility for energy in a climate disaster. We will not even reach the target set by this Dáil in the Bill that was passed and we will not reach the Paris Agreement targets if we go down the road that is being argued by the Minister.

The Minister is misleading the public by saying this is connected with the war in Ukraine. We do not rely on Russian gas. For the next ten years, 27% of our supply will be coming from Corrib and the remaining 73% through the Moffat interconnector, which the Minister just acknowledged is mainly Norwegian and British gas coming from the North Sea. To twist this whole debate around to the Ukrainian disaster is not fair and is misleading the public. Can the Minister repeat for me again, please, what the official Government position is on the creation of an LNG terminal and the location of such a terminal in this country, and the possibility of nuclear power? Please focus on the LNG question?

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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It is set out in the programme for Government, which we are now pursuing by carrying out the energy security study. I must return to the first key point as to the cause of this current crisis in high gas prices.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I am not talking about prices but supply.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Prices are one of the crises that we have to address-----

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I did not ask the Minister about prices; I asked about supply.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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-----and this debate is on whether the price crisis is connected to the war. Yes or no? It is fundamentally important to look at all of the options and at what is happening, and that we get clarity on that. There are a number of complex factors involved here related to how we came out of the Covid-19 pandemic, and so on, but what is happening in Russia and Ukraine is central to why our customers and our households are facing very high bills at the present time. I say that because it is part of the analysis that one has to take into account when looking at how we develop energy policy into the future. Ignoring that reality would not serve our people.