Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Minister of State’s reply. We are not just waking up to the fact Ireland has significant offshore wind potential. We have always known this. The wind has been blowing there for donkey's years; it did not start just now. That we are talking about it only now is just not good enough. We are in a very serious energy crisis. This LNG proposal could help us, as a nation, get out of that crisis. We have the deepest water in Europe for cargo shipping, a floating storage and re-gasification unit that, as a ship, will have LNG storage capacity of up to eight days' demand for Ireland, something we need to take into account.

The planning is now bogged down with An Bord Pleanála. I understand that the issue of concern relating to the application for the people arose because some of that source gas was going to come from fracking in the United States. If the company gave a commitment that natural gas would be sourced from the Middle East, would that allay the concerns the Minister of State might have? People are at the pin of their collar putting petrol in their car and their energy costs are growing daily. We have to react to that and we need to do something. The buck stops with the Green Party.