Electricity Supply: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-30 ============================================================ Gareth Scahill (FG), Nominated by the Taoiseach I thank the Minister of State for his response. He has given us something to think about. He has given us direction as to how we might be able to proceed from here. I welcome that. I acknowledge all of the Senators who made a contribution today. Senators P.J. Murphy called for an adult conversation on the future of our energy generation in the country and welcomed the €18.9 billion investment in the infrastructure. I recognise and can relate to Senator O'Loughlin's stories about being in north-west Kildare and the regular outages. While I spoke in my statement about Storm Éowyn and how my own household was without power for 13 nights, I can still relate to the fact that we regularly have outages. As public representatives, we are constantly engaging with people in our communities on reporting outages, trying to address them as quickly as possible and making it as easy as possible for the ESB to address them by encouraging people to report them. I welcome all of Senator Collins' remarks. I recognise her support for the motion. As my colleague says, it is potentially reluctant support but positive support all the same. If Senator Andrews was here for the full debate he would have got a better understanding rather than coming in with a prepared script from whoever gave it to him. Sinn Féin welcomed the household benefits package, a package that is equal to about €35. I was talking about 768,000 homes that were without power after Storm Éowyn, and another 39,000 that were still without power after ten days. The standing charge in rural areas, though not urban areas, would have had a significant impact, almost equalling what they were getting with the household benefit package. This is about fairness, as I have said from the start. That is something we are trying to encourage. We recognise the €18.9 billion. I also recognise the €3.5 billion portion of this investment being allocated to EirGrid and ESB Networks under price review 6, which is the largest ever individual investment in our electricity system. However, we all know that an awful lot of that investment has to go to capacity building in terms of housing and into the infrastructure, and some will be going to industry and business. I am talking about the 60-year-old, 65-year-old and 70-year-old ladies living on their own in rural areas whom I and, I am sure, many of my colleagues have visited, especially during these power outages, and how they were having to spend additional money. Even though they were not being charged for electricity during these outages, they were still having to spend additional money in order to bring in food, additional heating sources and additional ways of cooking. This would be a small little token along the way to try to make that system fair for them. I also acknowledge fully the large energy user connection policy. Representatives of IBEC and Enterprise Ireland were before the artificial intelligence committee this morning to discuss the environment. That would have been the place for Senator Andrews to make any point he had to make, where it could have had an impact on a committee report. There were very interesting contributions by the witnesses from both organisations. They were some of the more positive contributions we have heard in relation to the environment. IBEC has been able to identify that certain investments by businesses in Ireland have gone to other countries because we were not in a position to give them the grid capacity and planning assurances they need at an early stage. The investments the Government had made and the commitments it has given between now and 2030 will ensure longevity, success and that such investment stays in Ireland and will protect Irish jobs and businesses as we move forward. The whole purpose of this motion is about fairness and ensuring the investment going into the delivery of infrastructure around the country does not leave people in more rural areas behind. It is about ensuring that the energy companies see an impact on their bottom line by making sure the integrity of the system in rural Ireland is there to support them. As the Minister of State said, the measures currently in place are investing in the resilience of the grid in preparation for future weather events and seeking to minimise the cost of electricity for customers. We all agree on that end goal and we hope we can get there soon. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-30/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:07+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-30