Development (Strategic Gas Reserve) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages Dail Éireann — 2026-06-30 ============================================================ Roderic O'Gorman (GP), Dublin West Amendment No. 18 in this grouping is in my name. Before I get into the substantive issue, it is important to again raise the process that is being followed here. This is important legislation and there are fundamental disagreements over the extent to which it will contribute to our country's energy security, but it is being rushed through both Committee and Report Stages in two hours. There is no need for this Bill to be rushed in this way and I think it is unprecedented, certainly in this Dáil, to see this Bill and another one coming in in two hours' time being rushed in this way. This particular Bill is going to lock us into the use of LNG in our energy mix. It will have long-term consequences. The consequences of this Bill will be felt up to 2050. For a Bill that has a 25-year timeline, we are getting two hours of debate. It is important to put that on record. There is a large set of amendments. This is not filibustering, as these are detailed, researched amendments being put forward by the Opposition. Some them were drawn up with the advice of environmental groups. Those groups wanted to meet the Minister and engage with him on this Bill but he was not available. This is the ability for legislation to be strengthened and we are not getting that. When Committee and Report Stages are banged in together, it shows a Government not taking the issue seriously. It is important to put that on record. In particular, the idea that a brand new piece of fossil fuel infrastructure would be exempted from the application of the climate Act makes a mockery of our country's statements that we take climate action seriously. On the grouping, my amendment proposes that section 7(1) state: The designated strategic gas reserve, including any terminal, infrastructure, or facility developed under this Act, shall remain exclusively in public ownership and under State control and shall not be transferred or outsourced, in whole or in part, to any private commercial entity. It proposes that section 7(2) state: The facility shall be operated solely by a designated public body for emergency energy security purposes and shall not be utilized [sic] for commercial trading of gas supplies by any private enterprise. My amendment is trying to copper-fasten into the Bill the things the Minister has been saying throughout the debate on this legislation, namely, that it will be a publicly owned entity and will only be used for emergency purposes and have no commercial element to it. That has been said throughout this process but it is not in the Bill anywhere and we are trying to put it in. We are trying to bring in a reasoned amendment on this particular point. It is essential that the facility, if it goes ahead, does not contribute to additional net use of gas in the system. In order to secure that, the facility needs to be highly controlled. How do we do that? We ensure that, in the legislation, the gas that would be stored in this reserve would not be traded or sent out to any other body. This supply of gas should be solely for emergency purposes and it should only be an extreme emergency. It should be for that doomsday scenario that is spoken about time and again, that is, an attack on the undersea gas pipeline between Scotland and Northern Ireland. We must also ensure that in a case like that, in such a large energy emergency, it is not the large energy users, which seem to get so much precedence in the Department these days, which are going to benefit. They should be asked to cut their consumption in the case of an emergency like that. In order to achieve these objectives, the legislation needs to be changed to clearly articulate that it is State-owned and State-run and that there are clear controls put in for the Commission for Regulation of Utilities. By accepting this amendment, my amendment or some of the similar amendments proposed by other Deputies, the Minister could go at least some of the way to addressing the concerns raised by Opposition Deputies and NGOs that have raised these issues about the operation of the facility. He will actually be guaranteeing the political points he has made throughout this argument, which is that it is going to be publicly controlled. If it is, he should say it. It should be stated in the legislation. If it is not going to add to the overall supply of gas, he should state it, and put it into the legislation. We will listen to the Minister's response to this group of amendments but I cannot see why these basic levels of protection would not be codified within the Bill. --- 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/dail/2026-06-30/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:06+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-30