I was going to say I welcome the Bill, but I do not welcome it; it is a necessary evil. Its purpose is to secure the provision of energy to this country in the long term, at a time when the provision of energy and resources to generate energy are tremendously volatile and precipitous in terms of our access to energy. I listened to Deputy O'Gorman say security of supply should be achieved by domestic generation. I would fully agree with that statement, but for the fact that we are not capable of generating everything we need on this island. Thankfully, we have access to the UK electricity market through the North-South interconnector, and I look forward to accessing mainland Europe electricity in 2028, through the Celtic interconnector, a 575 km undersea cable that will connect us to Brittany. When that is completed, we will have access to the electricity there. That will be an important part of building energy security for this country. Some of the electricity coming through the Celtic interconnector will come from electricity generated by nuclear power stations. I do not have a problem with that but I would distinguish myself from other Government backbenchers who were referred to earlier. I do not think nuclear is part of the solution to our problems here, by any stretch. For a start, the cost involved is enormous. Moreover, the time delivery for it is way beyond what we would need to put in clean solutions such as wind, solar and, hopefully, wave, which is not being used nearly enough. More importantly, the use of nuclear energy as a solution to the security of supply for Ireland would build up enormous problems for future generations, and I simply do not hold with that idea. I am not afraid of the conversation in that regard, but I do not think nuclear is part of the answer. I understand why this Bill is being brought forward. As I said, I consider it to be a necessary evil. The reason for providing for an LNG terminal is to secure a supply of gas, if it is required and the supply of gas from elsewhere ceased. However, I am still not happy about that. For example, I am not happy that there are no guarantees in this legislation regarding fracked gas that might come here as LNG. There are not, and there cannot be, because it would create all kinds of other difficulties. It is, of course, important to build resilience into our system but I wonder if we will have missed the boat by the time we do so in 2030. As of today, there is not a single operational offshore wind farm in this country. The Minister of State will agree that this is not just regrettable; it is disgraceful. I know the Arklow Bank wind farm has been decommissioned but may well come back into service in due course, with further applications and all the rest. I am aware of projects off the coast of my constituency. I welcome those and look forward to their operation but we are years away from seeing those generate electricity. We have other problems, including growing electricity demand. If the LNG terminal is not going to be available until 2030, as I understand it, that in itself creates a problem from the point of view of its real assistance in energy security for this country. I wonder about the efficacy of it in that regard. There is always a balance to be struck to meet the requirements of the State. As bad as this might be, it would be a thousand times worse if, in a couple of years' time, there were rolling blackouts on our electricity grid or people were not able to avail of electricity for their homes and businesses or, worse, for essential services. We must do everything we can, as a Government, State, country and body politic, to ensure we are putting in place resilience measures so that we can compensate if there is a problem in this regard. Security of supply is central. We should be moving towards becoming energy independent. That should the end point of all our energy goals. We have the natural resources to do it. We have the wind, and I am told we have the solar. Even though it might feel like it today, it does not feel like it on a cold Monday in November. The point is that the natural resources exist and if we are to develop wave technology and other renewable technologies, we can do that. I recognise there is a long lead-in to that, which is far too long, in my opinion. The blocking and delays of offshore wind projects, which are even less problematic than onshore wind projects, are unacceptable. That is the kind of thing that we should target. If we are going to use a slot for controversial legislation, let us do it for that instead of creating an LNG terminal. However, I recognise the policy objective behind it. There are other aspects of the Bill that I am a little unhappy with. The objections I have primarily relate to drafting. For example, at the end of the Bill, Part 7, section 38, creates a consequential amendment to the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992. This is something that I say about legislation all the time. If we expect legislation to be readable by ordinary citizens, the amendment should be contained in the amending section. Section 38 states that a section of the 1992 Act is amended by replacing paragraph (b) with the following words, which is no use to anybody reading this Bill when it comes law. They then have to go and get the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 and read the two of them together to understand what this legislation is doing. It is a consistent disservice that we do in this House to the citizens of this country that we cannot, in amending a section, essentially repeal the old one and restate it in this Bill so that it is easily read by citizens. It would be an easy thing to do, yet we never, ever do it. This is, far and away, not the worst example. There have been more than a dozen Road Traffic (Amendment) Acts, for example. The 1961 Act, the primary Act, simply does not exist any more because it has been amended so many times, yet we have no consolidated Act. It is a point I make all the time because we would serve people much better if we were willing to actually engage with something that they could read. The other drafting points I wanted to make relate to the judicial review provisions in section 35 and elsewhere. The test for leave for a judicial review is amended in section 35(6). There is no need for that. We should allow the courts to do their job. Judicial review is a constitutional right that citizens have. We should not water that down. If they want to challenge it, let them challenge it. It is the same with the cost provisions in section 37(1). Why on earth would we need to put a cost provision in? The courts are managing that for themselves.

Sentiment score: 0.07