Development (Strategic Gas Reserve) Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-07 ============================================================ Joanne Collins (SF), Agricultural Panel I welcome the Minister of State to the House. Energy security is one of the most fundamental responsibilities of any government and people rightly expect, when they turn on the lights or when they open the doors of their businesses, that the electricity will be there for them. Unfortunately, that confidence has been undermined for years and it is down to Government failure. We find ourselves debating legislation because of successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments that have failed to properly plan for Ireland's energy future. They have left Ireland dangerously dependent on imported fossil fuels and overly reliant on a single piece of infrastructure, the Moffat interconnector. That vulnerability should have been addressed years ago. Nobody disputes that Ireland needs to strengthen its energy security and the 2023 energy security review recognised that a strategic gas reserve may be necessary to ensure secure supply in the event of catastrophic disruption. We have seen the disruption in this country as a result of the Strait of Hormuz being closed. Sinn Féin accepts that protecting our energy security is a legitimate objective. However, this Bill is not the legislation that Ireland needs. Instead of delivering a genuinely State-led strategic reserve in the public interest, the Bill opens the doors to commercial LNG. That is a significant departure from the recommendations of the Government's own energy security review, which review envisaged a State-led facility operating solely for strategic purposes. Energy security should never become an opportunity for private developers to profit. Decisions of national importance should be made in the interests of the Irish people and not those of corporate shareholders. Equally concerning is the Government's proposal to disapply elements of the planning Acts. We have spoken about this plenty of times when discussing wind energy and other planning matters. Communities need to be on board. They need to be consulted. They deserve to be heard. The people of County Clare deserved meaningful consultation before the location was announced. Good planning is not an obstacle to progress. It builds trust, strengthens projects and reduces the likelihood of costly legal challenges further down the line. We have seen lots of those over the years because we did not listen to communities and bypassed certain areas. Ordinary households are going to be expected to pick up the bill for this. Our understanding is that the operation of this facility could cost anything up to €60 million a year with those costs covered by levies pushed onto families and businesses that already have some of the highest energy bills in Europe. They should not be asked to pay more because this Government has failed to plan properly over the years. The truth is that Ireland remains one of the most fossil fuel-dependent countries in Europe. We import virtually all of our oil and coal and the vast majority of our natural gas. That leaves us exposed every time there is international instability or conflict. We have seen the consequences this has had over the years. Global events have translated directly into soaring energy bills for workers, families and businesses across Ireland. This dependency was not inevitable. Ireland possesses one of Europe's greatest renewable energy resources, our offshore wind. If the Minister of State were ever to take a trip down to Foynes in County Limerick, as he may have already, Pat Keating of the Shannon Foynes Port Company will tell him about the amazing project the company wants to get off the ground. We need to tap into things like this. The country could not only be energy independent but a major exporter of wind energy. Progress is painfully slow, however. We have been waiting for designated maritime area plans, DMAPs, for years. This process has only started. It started on the east coast, on the other side of the country, despite there being a plan and strategy for the area outside the estuary in County Limerick on the west coast. We are now waiting for the process to move around. By the time it does, the funding stream from Europe will have stopped and we will have to wait for the next funding stream. Everything seems to take so long. When there is such a good idea, we should move with it and go at pace to get these projects up and running and to get the funding in. Sinn Féin believes there is a better way. I have said there is a better way through offshore wind, but we also support greater public investment in and public ownership of renewable energy infrastructure. We want to see more community-owned and locally owned renewable projects so that the wealth generated by Ireland's natural resources benefits Irish people rather than flowing overseas. A secure energy future should be built around renewable energy, democratic accountability and public ownership, where appropriate. That is how we can reduce emissions, strengthen our energy security and bring down costs for consumers for the long term. Energy security is too important to be left to commercial interests. If a strategic gas reserve is required, it must be genuinely State-led, subject to full democratic oversight, developed with proper community consultation and operated solely in the public interest. It must not be a back door for commercial LNG and it should not result in even higher energy bills for households that are already under financial pressure. This Bill fails those tests. For those reasons, Sinn Féin cannot support the legislation as currently drafted. We will continue to argue for an energy policy that delivers genuine security of supply while accelerating Ireland's transition towards affordable, publicly accountable and renewable energy independence. --- 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/2026-07-07/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:09+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-07