Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and thank him for his ongoing briefing. From my perspective and that of my party, we have absolutely no problem with the provisions of the Bill. We would find ourselves in a potentially difficult situation without putting in place this temporary generating capacity. There was a lot of concern that we might be caught this winter. Thankfully, that did not happen. It is prudent to put in place the appropriate level of capacity to address those cold winter days when the wind is not blowing and we require backup from fossil fuels.

Like my colleague here and I am sure most colleagues in this House, I would prefer to see us having moved much further along the way in generating electricity from cleaner sources. The Government has a bit to do to address the offshore potential, particularly the floating offshore potential. Concerns have been expressed to me by various companies that are prospecting in this area about the difficulties they having in securing investment. It is not that they believe there is a lack of interest in the generation of this form of electricity, but that they do not think the Government is moving quickly enough and giving enough certainty to invest right now. That is a reality.

I think we have reached a saturation point, quite frankly, on onshore wind. When onshore wind projects began, lots of wind turbines were constructed in the area I know best in County Clare without any protest. Now, planning permission for every turbine is contested. Rather than digging in with onshore wind, we need to look at the offshore potential. I am completely happy with this legislation. I totally understand the necessity for it and I fully support it. In order to ensure we are not here again in a couple of years, we need to stand back and look at what has happened. We can blame many extraneous issues, but the simple reason we are in this situation is due to the procurement process that was put in place in 2019. The design of it was an unmitigated disaster and it failed miserably. It allowed bidders into a process who had no clothes, so to speak. They were not ready to deliver. We have gone through this at the joint committee with the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities, CRU, and the wonderful people who work there. They were misguided in their approach because it left a situation where companies made bids for the delivery of capacity and then failed to deliver. They made low bids, won the contracts and paid the penalties for not delivering. That is fine; some of them may have had commercial reasons for doing so. The process allowed them to do that. They are now back in the marketplace and are winning this emergency capacity at hugely inflated costs over and above what they bid previously - multiples of it. I do not want to blame anyone as I do not believe anybody from the CRU did anything other than their best. However, in an effort to drive towards lower cost, they failed to see that the bid process could be played. I have no doubt with everything that I have seen that the system was played. It does not mean anybody did anything wrong.The companies saw opportunities and effectively ended up blocking others getting into the marketplace. We now have to pay massive amounts of money for the emergency capacity. We have to set aside environmental principles, which we would not normally want to do. All I want is assurance but perhaps the Minister of State cannot give it. I wonder what has changed in the way in which we manage our big process to ensure we or whoever will be around in a couple of years find ourselves in the same situation again.

It is about recognising where we are, understanding how we got here and ensuring we have a policy platform that is fit for purpose. We need a bid process that is a hell of a lot more robust and ensures that those who get into the final bidding have all their ducks in a row and all their permissions. It is not good enough for them to say the technology they used would not get an EPA licence or their planning permissions did not come through. Those should be prerequisites. They must have all their permissions; in other words, they have to be shovel-ready. The auction in 2019 was a T-4 auction, which ultimately meant that the capacity would not be coming on until four years later.