National Oil Reserve Agency (Amendment) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-25
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Eoin Hayes (SD), Dublin Bay South

I move amendment No. 2:
In page 3, to delete lines 24 to 31 and in page 4, to delete lines 1 to 3.
As we discussed earlier, the substance of this amendment is to remove section 1(b) from the amendment Bill. The Minister should take that under consideration. In contrast to every other energy measure announced by the Government this week, all of which had a time limit of two months, this Bill authorises another 18 months in potential tax cuts which gut the Climate Action Fund. I have serious concerns about that. If I look at the 2024 Climate Action Fund report to see what the Government might defund, it includes the community Climate Action Fund for local authorities, bog rehabilitation, solar panels on schools and improving the energy efficiency of public buildings. This is potentially giving the Minister the unfettered power to stop all that climate action for 20 months in the middle of an energy crisis and when we are supposed to making progress on climate action.
People may ask what planet the Minister is on. It seems as if he wants to burn this one. I wish to be clear with my colleagues and the public. This is what is called non-voted expenditure. That means that the levy is created by legislation and ring-fenced for NORA, which is then authorised by the Minister to transfer the funds to the Climate Action Fund. In that process, there is no Dáil vote, no budget set by the Minister for Finance and voted on in October and no Cabinet discussion required. It is completely at the discretion of one person. Even the 2020 Act authorising the Climate Action Fund does not allow that kind of action with no oversight. It specifically states:
... the Minister may, in each financial year commencing with the financial year in which the National Oil Reserves Agency (Amendment) and Provision of Central Treasury Services Act 2020 is commenced, following consultation with the Agency, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and the Minister for Finance, give a direction to the Agency to pay into the Climate Action Fund in that financial year the amount specified in the direction.
Even the original transfers to the Climate Action Fund require consultation with someone else. However, by crazy contrast, this Bill requires no consultation with anyone for a tax cut of up to €200 million. The Minister did not tell us this in his opening remarks. His Department's memorandum on the Bill did not describe this dynamic. Either the Minister and his Department did not realise what they were doing or they have hidden something from the Dáil and the public. That is a very serious matter in either instance.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:47+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-25