Results 141-150 of 150 for long speaker:Darren O'Rourke

Climate Action: Statements (17 Sep 2020)

Darren O'Rourke: .... If it makes sense for people to do it and if it is done in a fair and equitable way, then there should be no issue. For this to happen, however, the Government's approach must be one of bringing people along on the journey with it. Taxing people who have no alternatives or carbon shaming people simply will not work. The Government's proposed increase in carbon tax is exactly the...

Biodiversity Action: Statements (25 May 2023)

Darren O'Rourke: ..., we need to track what is going wrong and where, and, we hope, where things are getting better. The Government either acted in ways that were grossly incompetent or, even worse, purposefully obstructive. Either way, it is not good enough and it goes a long way to explaining why we are in the middle of an emergency now. The overwhelming message of the assembly report is that the...

Development (Emergency Electricity Generation) Bill 2022: Second Stage (26 Oct 2022)

Darren O'Rourke: ...choices that contributed to the current situation. Another contributory factor to this current situation was the Government’s failure to develop our offshore wind over the past decade. Along with others, I was in Scotland recently, visiting the Moray East offshore wind farm and I witnessed at first hand how far ahead of us they are, specifically due to choices they made in recent...

Oil Emergency Contingency and Transfer of Renewable Transport Fuels Functions Bill 2023: Second Stage (18 Jan 2023)

Darren O'Rourke: ...through the Dáil and did not undergo any prelegislative scrutiny. In addition, both electricity credit Bills were brought through the Houses at speed. The Minister seems to be setting aside long-standing parliamentary process and scrutiny and ramming through legislation that has undergone very little prior examination by Deputies and Senators. An absence of prelegislative scrutiny...

Energy (Windfall Gains in the Energy Sector) (Temporary Solidarity Contribution) Bill 2023: Second Stage (27 Jun 2023)

Darren O'Rourke: ...significantly reduce the proportion of their eye-watering super-profits that can be targeted? I remind him that these profits were made on the back of war in Europe and the pandemic, both of which took place alongside a cost-of-living crisis. Will he explain the justification for this? Is this not simply a continuation of business as usual in the energy sector? It is hardly surprising...

Road Traffic and Roads Bill 2021: Second Stage (10 Nov 2021)

Darren O'Rourke: ...Ireland to proceed with dynamic traffic management on the M50 in the first instance, giving it the power to change speed limits on sections of the network. Drivers will be notified of such changes via lane control signals along the road and on overhead gantries. The aim of this is to allow TII to close lanes temporarily and slow traffic approaching an area where there has been an...

Energy (Windfall Gains in the Energy Sector) (Cap on Market Revenues) Bill 2023: Second Stage (21 Sep 2023)

Darren O'Rourke: ...and, I am sure, colleagues in the Houses too. I am pleased to finally have the opportunity to speak on this legislation and that it has been introduced. It is incredible that it has taken this long to get us here. The delay would be unacceptable in normal circumstances but in the context of today's surging and enduring cost-of-living crisis, it is shocking. As it stands, Ireland has...

Electricity Costs (Domestic Electricity Accounts) Emergency Measures and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2022: Second Stage (11 Oct 2022)

Darren O'Rourke: ...Bill seek to prevent disconnections of pay-as-you-go customers. The Government has been caught asleep at the wheel on this issue. Despite 346,000 households using prepay meters, the Government has no plan and seems to be making it up as it goes along. The Taoiseach went on national radio a couple of weeks ago and assured people they would not be disconnected this winter, but the...

Energy Charter Treaty: Statements (9 Nov 2023)

Darren O'Rourke: ...Senator Boylan who has done a significant amount of work on the Energy Charter Treaty, including a master's thesis, which very much informs our party policy and these statements. For a long time we have been advocates of withdrawal from the Energy Charter Treaty. It is a relic of a fossil fuel past. Negotiated in the early 1990s after the Cold War, this international agreement...

Gas (Amendment) Bill 2023: Second Stage (27 Sep 2023)

Darren O'Rourke: ...Fine Gael seemed to have missed this point. We do not even have a full picture of the scale of the problem and the range of policy options available to address it. The Government has been promising to publish the long-awaited and much-delayed security of supply review in the next few weeks for more than six months. The McCarthy report, conspicuously, is also yet to be published. The...