Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. It would be remiss of me not to point out the rushed manner in which this Bill is being brought before us. The Department sought for the pre-legislative scrutiny to be waived. No general scheme of the Bill was published. There was no regulatory impact assessment. It was rushed through the Dáil in two sittings and today it will be rushed through this House in one sitting. We are being asked to grant a waiver to the constitutional provisions against rushed legislation, to allow for an earlier signature by the President. On top of all of that, we had the issue last week where the Government used a procedural loophole to pass related legislation by amending the Circular Economy, Waste Management (Amendment) and Minerals Development (Amendment) Bill 2022. I must register my concern that this is not the way in which we should be passing legislation.

I listened with interest to Senator Buttimer talk about the need for a LNG terminal.We have to be honest about why we are passing this legislation. It is an emergency measure. No one wants the lights to go off in the winter. However, the main aim of the Bill is to allow EirGrid to procure 450 MW of backup electricity generation capacity to ensure we have enough electricity to meet demand over the coming years. This mismatch in electricity supply and demand is a direct result of the failed, incoherent policies of Governments, of which Fine Gael has been a part, for the past ten years. It is staggering that we are in a situation where emergency legislation is being passed in 2022 because we are at risk of the lights going out. We all know the elephant in the room is that rising demand for electricity continues to outstrip the pace of generation and the extra demand is coming from data centres, whose demand increased by 144% between 2015 and 2020. The insatiable demand is, of course, the natural outworking of Fine Gael policy. For years, Fine Gael was open about encouraging data centres to set up in Ireland and rolled out the red carpet for them. That is why it is disappointing that, having followed the debate in the Dáil, it seems the Green Party is refusing to accept that fact. It is not the Green Party's legacy. It is a Fine Gael Legacy that the Green Party has unfortunately inherited. We have to accept that the reason we have to pass emergency legislation is that demand from data centres is outstripping the pace of generation.

The other factor that has led to this legislation is the failure of the CRU to procure generation capacity. The commission has serious questions to answer in that regard. Every time Members table parliamentary questions to the Minister about the CRU, they are reminded that the CRU is an independent regulator. The CRU must be held accountable and to that end, I welcome that the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action has agreed to my recommendation that the CRU be brought before the committee on a quarterly basis. The CRU is accountable to the committee and has serious questions to answer in regard to the procurement of 200 MW of generation capacity.

The Bill prioritises the CRU in directing EirGrid to facilitate gas-powered generation. Where is the priority for a demand-side strategy? According to the response to a Commencement matter, we will see it by the end of this year, which means it will not come into effect until 2023. A demand-side strategy would allow households to be rewarded for reducing their electricity demand.

Where is the biomethane strategy whereby we could use waste to generate gas fuels instead of bringing in fossil fuel gas? Where is the EirGrid software update that would recognise battery storage? Across the water, multi-hour and multi-day battery storage is displacing gas-powered generators, whereas our grid does not even recognise battery storage. Prioritising gas-powered generation to meet the demand of the energy shortfall skews our priorities.

Major questions need to be answered about the impact on households. We are halfway through 2022 and there is still no energy poverty strategy. I encourage everyone to come to the briefing in the audiovisual room at 10 a.m. tomorrow to hear about the impact of energy poverty across the whole of society. The last energy poverty strategy lapsed in 2019. The Bill shifts more costs on to households, although by how much is unclear. The Minister outlined in the Dáil how the full cost for households will not be known until the contracts are finally worked out. A figure of €40 per household, per annum was put to him. Will that figure be confirmed today? We were told it would be less than €40 but can that be guaranteed, so that we are not adding to people's household bills? With this legislation, is the Minister asking households to write a blank cheque? What protections are in place to prevent costs being borne by the most vulnerable consumers?

The Minister also outlined in the Dáil that €350 million is to be transferred to EirGrid from Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications, by means of a Supplementary Estimate. Will the Minister of State outline the exact budget lines he proposes to take from to fund this transfer to EirGrid?The last time we had such a situation with a Vote was regarding the underspend on retrofits. Is the underspend in the Department coming from broadband, cybersecurity or An Post?

The Bill will amend the Turf Development Act 1998 to increase Bord na Móna’s borrowing capacity to €650 million, which we are told will help it fund its expansion into renewable energy. This is welcome given the urgent climate crisis. We want to see the State, particularly through semi-State bodies, lead the way on investment in renewable energy to ensure the State retains as much ownership as possible of our energy production capacity. I have concerns about this section and will return to them on Committee Stage. I also express my concerns about how Bord na Móna is treating the communities of the area in which the mid-Shannon wilderness park is proposed to go ahead. The company gave a commitment to those communities that it would create a wilderness park when it had stopped harvesting the turf. It now seems to be going back on that commitment, which does not bode well for a just transition.

I raise once again my concerns about the sort of risk assessment that has been done in terms of procuring gas-fired generators, the Energy Charter Treaty and the possible exposure of the State if it decides to fast-track the running down of these gas generators. If we get renewables on stream quick enough, and with demand reduction and battery storage, we may not need gas-fired generators as much as we think we will. Will we be liable to foot the bill of what the companies think their future profits will be?