Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been in government for over a decade. They have had years to secure our energy future, yet they have failed. They have squandered our renewable potential and left us dangerously overexposed to volatile international markets and geopolitical conflict. We saw this during the invasion of Ukraine, and we are seeing it again now. Families and workers are left paying extortionate energy bills because this Government refused to plan. Now, in a panic, it is asking us to spend €1 billion to fix a crisis of its own making. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael cannot be trusted on energy security because they do not treat it as a public good; they treat it as a corporate commodity. Sinn Féin believes that the answer to Ireland’s energy security must be State-led and guided by the public interest and not the corporate bottom line. This legislation is not fit for purpose. It disapplies the planning Act, strips local communities of their democratic rights and treats people with contempt. By removing normal planning safeguards, this Government is guaranteeing one thing: legal challenges and further delays. The Bill rolls out the red carpet to commercial LNG. The 2023 energy security review recommended a State-led facility as a strategic reserve, and it set out specific conditions. This legislation ignores those conditions. It allows private commercial developers to bypass the rules to which everybody else must adhere. Why is this? It is to impress international developers and not to serve the Irish people. This Bill will hike up household bills. The estimated €60 million annual running costs will be socialised through a levy on energy bills. Ordinary workers and families are already struggling with the cost of living, and Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael want to add a new tax to their bills to pay for their failures. This is simply unacceptable. The Government will tell us this is necessary for our N-1 gas reserve criteria but the reality is that we are in this position because this Government has failed to develop our indigenous renewable resources. Ireland has 640 GW of untapped offshore wind potential. How much of it has been delivered? The answer is zero. We actually have less now than we had 20 years ago, such is the level of incompetence. The Government talks a big game but it is all hot air. Projects in the pipeline have not even broken ground. We are one of the most fossil fuel-dependent countries in Europe, importing 94% of our energy from fossil fuels. That is a strategic vulnerability, and this Government has entrenched it rather than fixed it. This move would further entrench it. Sinn Féin has a better vision. We want to achieve energy independence through renewables which are publicly-owned and community-owned, and serving the common good. We want to follow countries like Spain, Norway and Denmark, which insulated their citizens from crises through public investment. If this facility must go ahead, then it must be strictly State-led, fully transparent and subject to democratic oversight. It must not be a backdoor for commercial LNG or an excuse to hike bills further. The State must lead and the people must come first.

Sentiment score: 0.01