Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)

I move amendment No. 1:

To insert the following after “That Seanad Éireann”:

“, subject to a clear prohibition on the development of a Liquid Natural Gas terminal,”.

While generally perceived as a document which sets the agenda for accelerated housing delivery, the draft revised national planning framework is concerned with all aspects of life, including a 26-page section on climate transition and our environment. Therefore, I bring forward this amendment primarily because of the recent policy reversal by the current Government with regard to the building of LNG infrastructure. There are three core considerations relating to energy in this national framework, namely, energy procurement, energy generation and energy storage. The overall ambition is to adhere to our legally binding target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 51% over the decade 2021 to 2030 and to achieve net zero emissions no later than 2050. This target should inform everything we do in the context of energy procurement, generation and storage.

The national energy policy referred to on page 132 of the framework insists that all energy policy relating to planning should be built on the pillars of sustainability, security of supply and competitiveness. We in the Labour Party support these ambitions and want to work with the Government in achieving a just transition to reach our targets. However, the ambitious target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 51% by 2030 will be difficult to achieve as it is. The SEAI report of 2023 states that 85.8% of our energy still comes from fossil fuels, so we have five years to reach 51%. This target will be rendered completely impossible if we allow the development of LNG infrastructure, which also flies completely in the face of, and contradicts, all three pillars of the national energy policy.

The first pillar of the national energy policy is sustainability. LNG is high in methane, which is 80 times more warming than CO₂. If it were a matter of filling the terminal once in case of emergencies, it might be justified in some way to build a reserve, but it is not. LNG needs to be vented to maintain safety of this volatile explosive gas. We either vent the gas into the atmosphere, or into the grid, or we use it. We are obviously going to use it. Maintaining a seven-day strategic reserve requires six replenishments per year, each of 170,000 cu. m of gas, equating to an additional 500,000 tonnes of carbon per year. It will take five years to build a terminal and if we are to reduce our 2018 emissions by 51% by 2030, how does building this terminal make sense? Should we unveil a new piece of fossil infrastructure the year we are hitting the 51% mark? This brings me to the second pillar, which is security of supply. This document states that the inter-island gas network has been extremely reliable since its introduction 30 years ago. At the moment, everyone knows that we have two gas pipe gas lines supplying natural non-fracked gas from Scotland. Inter-connector 1 lands north of Dublin and interconnector 2 at Gormanston. A third available pipeline from Scotland to Carrickfergus is also connected to the Irish gas network through the North-South network. The same document assessed the risk of a failure to each pipeline and the results showed that the failure risk for interconnector 1 is once in 49 years and for interconnector 2 it is once in 52 years. For two failures to occur at the same time is extremely unlikely.

The third pillar is competitiveness. LNG is consistently more expensive than piped natural gas - in fact, it is five times more expensive than natural gas. While gas is used to provide heating and hot water in some homes, its chief use in Ireland is being burned in power stations in order to generate electricity. However, once the initial capital investment has been expended, the cost of generating electricity from renewable energy sources is minimal. As I said, our commitments to deliver our climate targets and reduce emissions by 51% by 2030 are legally binding. They are accompanied by penalties for failure to meet these targets.

The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and Climate Change Advisory Council described the Government's seeming willingness to pay these penalties as staggering. We could pay anything from €8 billion to €26 billion per year in penalties. If the Government allocates just 10% of the planned national overall spending budget over the next five years to climate action measures, this could be enough to halve our projected penalty costs. True competitiveness will be achieved by working toward self-sufficiency and becoming a net exporter, not importer, of energy. Spending money in the building of new fossil fuel infrastructure such as an LNG terminal is not an investment. Rather, it is a monumental frittering away of our climate and financial future.

I have other concerns about the framework document that I need to address. A number of county councillors from rural constituencies have contacted me to express their concern that the planning framework could drive another nail into the coffin of rural Ireland. For example, there is no acknowledgement of the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Donegal. The defective concrete block scandal, whereby a plan to restore thousands of homes in Donegal to a liveable condition is required, needs to be included. In parts of County Leitrim, to which I have referred in terms of the threat of fracked gas, there is widespread belief that the rural heartland of the county is being transformed into a sacrificial zone. The wholesale plantation of unsuitable non-native Sitka spruce now covers over 20% of all of the land in the county. There is a very real risk posed by future exploration of precious minerals such as gold and a fear that allowing the importation of fracked gas will be a Trojan horse for the exploitation of significant gas reserves under the county as a whole. Leitrim is being sacrificed.

These concerns need to be listened to. A chronic shortage of housing has been reported in the Gaeltacht, exacerbated by the proliferation of holiday homes and short-term lets. Housing in the Gaeltacht is not addressed in the framework. I live in Sligo, which, despite being a regional centre recognised in the framework as performing a similar function as a city in our region, does not receive the support it needs to grow and develop in a sustainable manner. The deficiencies in our rail network illustrate this perfectly. The planning framework should support our communities and promote genuinely climate positive infrastructure projects such as the reopening of the western rail corridor, allowing populations throughout smaller towns and villages in Sligo, Mayo and Donegal to commute to larger centres to work while being able to live in their own villages, supported by essential services such as schools, GAA clubs, primary health care centres and community centres.

I urge Members to support my amendment. This framework will last until 2040. If we really want to see a commitment to reach our climate action targets and not pretend that investing in fossil fuel infrastructure will meet that, we need to instead invest in balanced regional development by opening up the western rail corridor and improving links between Sligo and Dublin.