Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 11, line 30, after "€650,000,000" to insert the following: “and such borrowings shall be used in line with principles of and for the purpose of facilitating a just transition”.

Senator Higgins sends her apologies as unfortunately she cannot be here today. The amendment is quite simple. We are increasing the borrowing limits given to Bord na Móna quite significantly. This should be the case as we are in a climate emergency and in a cost-of-living crisis in which the price of energy is a real challenge for people. This amendment is saying that the money that can be borrowed should be used for just transition measures. We have heard many times in recent months that accelerating the development of renewable energy is key to reducing the cost of living. We heard from the Minister that since the cost of oil and gas is so expensive, the cost of renewables has come down, which means they are paying back into the PSO, which sees households getting a rebate on that element of it.

However, we have not seen that acceleration or move towards a just transition in reality, and for ordinary people the crisis is getting worse. For our planet the emergency is deepening every day. In Ireland and throughout the world, energy companies are making huge profits at the moment on the backs of workers and the horrific war in Ukraine. As a separate point, we should be taxing the windfall those companies are receiving and investing those revenues in a just transition for workers and communities. We talk all the time now about how we are experiencing an unprecedented crisis when it comes to energy but the reality is it is not unprecedented; it is expected. The tide is turning on fossil fuels but it needs to turn faster. The Ukraine war has certainly brought it into focus and those who may have defended the use of fossil fuels as bridging fuels can no longer make those arguments. They are not sustainable and do not belong in conversations about the future of energy supply. This amendment places a clear obligation on Bord na Móna to use the money borrowed under this provision for just transition measures. It is the direction we need to be moving towards, and indeed steps like this represent the ambition we need to end both the cost of living and the climate crises.

Those of us who sat in on the pre-legislative scrutiny on the climate Bill at the time were concerned that a just transition did not feature once in any reference in the Bill. Eventually we got a small reference to it included. In regard to just transition and its principles, the amendment we call for is to mirror Scotland where principles are enshrined in its climate Act. The reality is that just transition and climate justice have to be factored into everything we are doing. That is why with the stuff around the data centres, we have to put the facts on the record: 15% of electricity demand in Ireland is from data centres. That figure is 1% in Germany, 6% in the Netherlands which is the closest to us. We are a complete outlier. When we talk about just transition and just transition principles, it makes it much harder for us to meet our climate targets but it is also putting a cost on the State to provide emergency generation to feed that insatiable demand. It is important. It might be 2% of our emissions but we are in the process of trying to bring down our emissions by 4% per year, so 2% is actually quite a large amount of our emissions.

The amendment is from Senator Higgins. I would like to hear the Minister of State's response to it because it is a very simple amendment that says that if we are increasing the borrowing limits given to Bord na Móna, we should at least ensure that just transition is at the heart of borrowing.