I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I am pleased to address the House on Second Stage of the Development (Strategic Gas Reserve) Bill. As Deputies are aware, the main purpose of the Bill is to provide for a project-specific, bespoke consenting pathway for the strategic gas emergency reserve facility to be located at Cahiracon in County Clare. This will enable a development consent application to be submitted later this year, which is critical to achieving accelerated delivery of this project. Before outlining the provisions of the Bill, I would like to speak on a number of key points relating to the development of the legislation. In March 2025, Government approved a State-led strategic gas emergency reserve. This is critical to securing Ireland's energy systems as we continue to transition to indigenous, clean renewable energy. Crucially, the strategic gas emergency reserve will also ensure Ireland's compliance with EU standards and regulation. A strategic gas emergency reserve is a State-owned gas storage facility that will provide the resilience required to support our energy transition. This State-led strategic reserve will store LNG for use only in the event of a disruption to gas supplies to protect Ireland's citizens, economy and reputation from the possibility of energy curtailments. It is not intended for commercial use and will not act as a new entry point for gas into the system. The final design will be scoped to provide sufficient supply to protect household and business customers in the event of a major disruption to subsea gas pipelines. Gas Networks Ireland will ensure appropriate contractual arrangements are in place to refill the floating storage and regassification unit throughout an emergency situation to provide consistent gas supplies via the floating storage and regassification unit for the duration required. The introduction of bespoke legislation was agreed following advice from the Office of the Attorney General's to reduce the uncertainty of the timelines regarding planning decisions and to facilitate the request from Government to expedite delivery of the project. The ongoing phased commencement of the Planning and Development Act 2024 at this time prevents the project benefiting from the required expedited decision timeframe to deliver this project. The conventional planning route under the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended, has been fully considered and it is proposed to disapply it given the need for an expedited decision timeframe necessary to deliver this project. The legislation will allow for the next stage of development for the strategic gas emergency reserve. It is intended to submit the development consent application by the end of 2026 in order to achieve an accelerated project delivery timeline. It is intended to bring forward a memo for Government later this year requesting permission to draft the strategic gas emergency reserve (operational) Bill to provide for the operation of the strategic gas emergency reserve. This will be the substantive Bill addressing provisions related to the operation, use and cost of the reserve as well as a number of policy matters previously raised by Oireachtas Members. The Bill contains 7 Parts and 38 sections, and I will give a brief overview of it now. Part 1 contains four sections containing standard legislative provisions that cover the Short Title of the Bill, commencement procedures, definitions of terms used in the Bill, a regulation-making power, as well as enabling the expenses of the Minister to be paid out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas. Part 2 contains three sections relating to what comes within the scope of designated development. Section 5 provides for what constitutes "designated development" for the purposes of development and use of a strategic gas emergency reserve to be located at Cahiracon in County Clare. Sections 6 and 7 provide that the Planning and Development Act 2000, the Planning and Development Act 2024, and Regulation 2 of the European Communities (Birds and Natural Habitats) Regulations 2011 are disapplied in relation to designated development, to facilitate the alternative consenting process set out in the Bill. Part 3 contains four sections relating to the seeking of approval to carry out designated development. It provides for a mechanism for pre-application consultation. The required contents of an application are specified as well as the requirement to give public notice of an application and details of the public consultation procedure. It sets out who may submit an application for designated development under this procedure, being limited to Gas Networks Ireland or such other public bodies as may be prescribed. Part 4 contains 17 sections relating to the environmental impact assessment and appropriate assessment procedures that will apply to an application for designated development. These assessments shall be carried out by An Coimisiún Pleanála within specified, accelerated timelines. It provides for a period of 18 weeks for a decision to be made by An Coimisiún Pleanála from receipt of an application to final decision. Time when An Coimisiún Pleanála is waiting for a return of further information by the applicant will be disregarded towards this overall time period. Part 5 contains three sections relating to the determination of an application for approval to carry out designated development. Part 6 provides for miscellaneous provisions relating to designated development granted approval under this bespoke process. Section 15 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 is disapplied to relevant bodies performing functions in relation to designated development. The Minister may also issue a direction to competent authorities responsible for the granting of relevant consents, to facilitate priority consenting of the project. The judicial review and access to justice provisions have been adapted from the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended, retaining the well-tested framework that currently applies to a challenge to a planning decision in the courts. Part 7 contains one section relating to a consequential amendment to the Environmental Protection Act 1992. I commend the Bill to the House and I look forward to the debate and the contributions from Members.
Sentiment score: 0.12
In line with the Deputy’s comments, I congratulate him on being so succinct in his points. He managed to do it in a relatively quick time. I will make a number of general comments. We have had a good debate across a lot of areas, many of which are not part of or subject to this legislation. This Bill is the first stage in addressing the energy security deficit that we have. It is an enabling piece of legislation to allow for the procurement of the necessary permissions. It sets out a timely way to do that by setting aside certain pieces of existing legislation in order to get it done at the haste it needs to happen. Everybody recognises, and there has been a broad consensus, that we need energy security. Others have pivoted to saying what we should be doing is addressing the renewables issue, which of course we are. Bringing forward this piece of legislation in no way distracts from the Government's agenda to move towards and reach our climate change targets in relation to the reduction of CO2 emissions, the electrification of our economy and generation of that electricity from renewable resources within our own ambit. It is the right thing to do from a climate change perspective. It is the right thing to do from an energy security perspective. It is the right thing to do for our citizens and businesses into the future, from the perspective of competitiveness. It guarantees us costs. It allows us to reduce costs and not to be vulnerable to the kinds of shocks that everybody has talked about. I know we are in a political Chamber but if you strip away a lot of the politics, there is little between any of us in this House about where we need to go. It is the case that we are all aligned on renewables but to get renewables at scale and reach the capacity to power our economy when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining, we need something else to power our electricity generation. We will require greater amounts of that as we move heating, transport and more components of our economy onto the grid and we need to invest in our grid. We are doing that. I know there is some criticism that we do not have any turbines in the water at the moment. We were ahead of others, and we have fallen behind for sure. However, the plans we have in place and the projects at different stages of permissions were not mentioned at all. We have to work them through, and we expect by 2031 or 2032 to have between 3 GW and 5 GW of electricity generated from offshore renewable sources. We are at about 8 GW on land at the minute, between solar and wind. That is a significant quantum of electricity. The previous Government changed the strategy for the development of offshore renewables. Rather than having it being developer led, identifying sites and responding to various options, we now have a planned approach in place. The DMAP for an area off the south-east coast of Ireland has worked well. The bid went through last December. Some 900 MW of electricity has been procured and that is now working its way through the planning system. The State has derisked projects like that by capturing the subsea data and providing it to the bidders. There was a caustic comment about the number of conferences we have had. I have participated in those. I have travelled to encourage international developers to participate in those auctions. That is to the long-term benefit of Ireland. There is a recognition among the large companies that take on these projects that Ireland is a good place to invest, and they are following through on that. There were three or four bidders for the auction off the south-east coast. They are still interested in Ireland and there are three other opportunities in the same designated zone, which will be going to auction over the coming months and year. In addition, the State has undertaken a national designation for such sites, and we will have all of those sites identified by the end of 2027. That strategy is working towards our commitment out to 2040, so we will have identified all the necessary sites to generate an additional 15 GW of electricity. That will far surpass our domestic demand. It opens up opportunities if we can get the right interconnectors in place. We have the Celtic one coming on board. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, on behalf of the Government, recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Spain to look at the possibility of interconnection there too. We are travelling at significant pace and scale now to reach our renewable targets. We are also developing a strategy for hydrogen because we identified that getting to 2050 and reaching net zero, particularly with regard to our electricity generation, will not be possible without hydrogen or some component thereof, be it ammonia or whatever. Ultimately, if we get to a point where we are able to use the electricity for the purpose of generating hydrogen at times where the demand is not on the grid, we will have effective storage of clean energy in a molecule format that can be stored. It will either be that or through ammonia, whatever is the safest method of doing it as technologies develop. That ensures you are not grounding electrons or doing dispatch downs. Some seem to suggest, from a critical perspective, that the Government was not talking a strategic approach but of course we are. We are planning it now in a long-term strategic way, recognising where our targets are and what we have to achieve. In the here and now, today, and beyond 2030 as we head towards 2040, we will still need fossil fuels to fill that gap in our energy mix. It would be foolhardy of any administration of whatever hue in this House to somehow walk away from its responsibility to provide insofar as it can a back-up storage plan in the less likely but still possible event of some disruption to the two gas interconnectors out of Scotland. For years gone by, we were drawing a significant amount of our gas from the Corrib gas field. As that is petering out, and the level of gas coming from it is reducing significantly, we have to move on this. Frankly, I think we should have moved sooner. That would be my criticism. This should have been in place. We are doing it now. Others then suggested we were baking in or locking ourselves into fossil fuel infrastructure. Had we allowed some of the commercial operators who sought to do this to build a gas terminal, then yes we would be locking ourselves in. This is a mobile piece of kit. There will be some hardware on the ground but, in essence, it is a ship storing gas connected to our pipeline. When the Government gets to a point that it no longer requires that level of storage, the asset moves on. A lot of questions were raised today that do not really relate to this Bill. This is just about the permission and setting aside certain elements of existing planning legislation to get the fast-tracked approach through. Another Bill will come forward later this year that will effectively be the operational component, and which will address the costs and the kinds of commitments that have been sought with regard to the length of time, usage, access for private capital and all of that. All of those elements will be in a later Bill. The issues were raised and there are amendments. I have had a quick look at them and have been briefed on a number of them. They are more likely to relate to the next Bill rather than this Bill. Some of the concepts and discussions we were having today and the issues raised have more application in the operational piece of legislation rather than just on the planning side. Deputy Whitmore raised a number of issues she was concerned were not in this Bill, and I want to assure her and many others that those elements will be addressed or, if they are not, Members can discuss them with us. We will happily look at them. I obviously make no commitment in advance of a piece of legislation that has yet to be published. The heads of Bill probably still have to go to Government to clear but we have a broad plan here and we want to implement it.
Sentiment score: 0.12