Development (Strategic Gas Reserve) Bill 2026: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-07
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Lorraine Clifford-Lee (FF), Nominated by the Taoiseach

I thank the Minister of State for comprehensively outlining this important legislation that we are here to discuss.
The Minister of State has my full support in this legislation. It is timely. The Government made a decision in March 2025. When that decision was made, we clearly understood the need for resilience and the need to protect the interests of the State, but the Government could not have foreseen the situation that emerged, particularly over the past couple of months, when the energy supply has been weaponised by those who seek to destroy this country and our peace, security, stability and prosperity. We need to be mindful of the risks that are out there. We are a neutral country but we are part of the European bloc. There are very strong forces afoot that are trying to weaken and destroy us. Energy security is a part of that. We are insecure in our energy supply - there is no two ways about it - but I am glad that the Government is addressing it. It is the mature, responsible thing to do to protect the good lives that we lead in this country. We are doing so in conjunction with developing renewable sources of energy as well. This is not a question of putting all of our eggs in one basket, but resilience requires us to develop this LNG storage facility.
I commend the Minister of State on the work that he has done. I look forward to the debate and all Stages of this Bill progressing because we need to move swiftly. The Government has moved swiftly since taking that decision. This is a positive step but we need to get going on it because time is of the essence.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-07-07/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:09+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-07