Development (Strategic Gas Reserve) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-16
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Patricia Stephenson (SD), Labour Panel

I move amendment No. 1:
In page 7, between lines 22 and 23, to insert the following:
“ “emergency” means a situation where the State is experiencing a significant and protracted physical disruption of gas supply, or other catastrophic deterioration of the supply situation, and where—
(a) all relevant market-based measures have been fully implemented, exhausted, and proven insufficient to meet gas demand, and
(b) non-market-based measures must be introduced to safeguard gas supplies to protected customers, in accordance with the criteria for an Emergency Level under Article 11(1)(c) of Regulation (EU) 2017/1938.
For the avoidance of doubt, an emergency does not include localised network constraints, or routine seasonal increases in gas demand where physical supply remains available.”.
A number of us on this side of the House have concerns around what this is opening us up to.
We are concerned that we do not have the correct protections and safeguards in place to ensure that the supply will be State-owned and State-led because it is not included in the definitions in the legislation.
This amendment seeks to define genuine emergency supply. We want to make sure it is written into legislation and we do not see any mission creep whereby this facility is allowed to become a de facto gas intake facility that would increase our gas intake more broadly.
There are huge environmental concerns around this. It should be a last ditch option. We are not delighted about the disapplication of the climate Act, first and foremost, in this legislation. If it is to go ahead, it is crucial that there are safeguards in place. The world is literally on fire in some places. We have a forest fire in Ireland for the first time in years perhaps. I know we sometimes have them in the Mourne Mountains in the North. This is cause for concern, not just for future generations but for us today. The impacts of climate change are terrifying, and there are people dying in Europe because of the heat. We have serious concerns that this proposal will facilitate further carbon emissions. Effectively, we are disapplying the climate Act and our climate obligations at a time when we should be leaning in to climate policies and sustainability, which this legislation does not do. I cannot fathom why we are taking this approach.
I understand the Government's arguments around energy security but, at the same time, we are not doing anything. Look at our offshore wind. We are absolute laggards when once upon a time we led in Europe. There is no sense to it. Instead, we are forced to resort to this because of inaction and a lack of adequate planning for decades by the Government.
We feel there could be a de facto gas intake facility, which would not be an emergency, special-use only facility for when we really need it, just in case. The Government will spend €1 billion on this facility, which it called temporary. That is a huge investment for something that is temporary. My understanding is that this is €1 billion of taxpayers' money for a facility that will be used by private companies. They will benefit from the existence of this facility but it will cost €1 billion in taxpayers' money to establish it.
The Department has stated this facility "will provide the resilience required to support our energy transition" and that "the reserve will only be used in genuine emergencies", yet there is no definition in this Bill of what the Government means by an emergency and when that would apply. To prevent this reserve from creeping towards a permanent facility used for the general provision of energy, we need an up-to-date comprehensive energy security review. An amendment put forward by my colleagues in the Social Democrats and signed by a number of us in this House would evaluate all energy security alternatives, such as battery storage and alternative sustainable fuel resources. As the Minister of State will know, our capacity for storing renewable energy in Ireland is rubbish. With all of the great weather we are having, people, businesses and individual households can send power back to the grid, but it is not being stored in the capacity that it should be. We need cheaper battery storage for individual households as well.
It is important that an emergency does not include routine winter demand increases, seasonal demand spikes and local network constraints where gas remains available. The Bill does not clearly explain when the LNG could be activated. Without a clear definition, the threshold for using the facility would become increasingly broad, the strategic reserve could become a normal part of gas operations and operators could justify using it for reasons of commercial convenience. We are concerned that this is going to become utterly normalised, rather than being this so-called last-ditch option to be used only in a real emergency. We have absolutely no definition of what that means to the Government. An emergency could mean very different things to me and to the Government. When the world is on fire why are we leaning not towards climate-friendly, green, sustainable energy sources but towards something that is so incredibly harmful for our planet?
On climate change and the climate emergency, we cared about it in 2017, when we had "Fridays for the Future", and in 2019 but now, a few years later, we have forgotten about it. Now, it seems like it is so far down the line that we are all happy to engage in cognitive dissonance, stick our heads in the sand and pretend the world is not literally on fire, not for future generations but for our generation today, as people die from the heat in Europe.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-07-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:17+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-16