In a sign of growing national consensus around the issue, it was revealed this week that almost half of the TDs elected to the Dail have signed a pledge stating that they were "opposed to the importation of US fracked Gas into Ireland via LNG import terminals".

Before the election, in its #Pledge4Climate campaign environmental  NGOS, 'Love Letirim' , 'Friends of the Earth' and 'Safety Before LNG' obtained support from at least 193  candidates for the General election held on February 8th, 2020, for the pledge which stated:

"I am opposed to the importation of US fracked Gas into Ireland via LNG import terminals. If elected, I, as a T.D., will work to find a way in the next Dail to prevent fracked Gas from entering the Irish energy mix via fixed or floating LNG terminals. I am opposed to fracking in Northern Ireland .If elected, I, as a T.D., will work constructively in the next Dail to prevent fracking from taking place in Northern Ireland".

74 of those candidates got elected and this included all the elected T.D.s from the Labour Party, The Social Democrats,  People Before Profit, The Green Party, Independents for Change, and Sinn Fein,  along with leading elected Fianna Fail and Fine Gael T.D.s Eamon O'Cuiv, Marc McSharry and Frank Feighan.

These numbers were boosted by the clear positions against Fracking taken by Fianna Fail in the Dail on October 3rd, 2019 "in recognition of the health and climate impacts of exploiting shale gas reserves".

Already, on October 3rd 2019, the Majority of Ireland's MEPs had told the European Commission not to allow fracked gas into Ireland via the Projects of Common Interest list. The Irish MEPs were supporting a motion co-signed by 44 TDs initiated by Brid Smith of 'People Before Profit', submitted to the Dail on September 26th, 2019 calling on the Irish Government:

"to remove any project from the proposed list of Projects of Common Interest that could support the building of an LNG facility in Ireland that will act as a gateway for fracked gas entering the Irish energy mix; and − to build support in Europe to prioritise sustainability criteria in the assessment of candidate PCI projects, that will address fossil fuel lock in and the long-term impacts of fracked gas in the European energy mix, given the expected change in climatic conditions."

On November 15th, 2019, at  the Youth Assembly on Climate Change held in Dail Eireann, Roisin Keegan-O'Rourke  informed the House that the Youth Assembly was proposing:

"for Ireland to ban the importation of fracked gas and invest solely in renewables" 

On November 27th, 2019, in a signal of Government softening on the issue, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, speaking in the Dail stated:

"The Government banned fracking in Ireland, through a Private Members' Bill introduced by my colleague, Deputy McLoughlin. I am not sure whether we are in a position to ban the import of fracked  gas from other jurisdictions. I will have to check it out"

On February 12th, 2020  the majority of Irish MEPs (including Fine Gael's Maria Walsh) voted against the 4th PCI list which included the proposed Shannon LNG fracked gas import project. 

The Department of Environment  has announced a major review into the security and sustainability of Ireland's energy supply but under the outdated presumption that gas is considered  "as the lowest CO2 emitting fossil fuel" which is pre-judging the outcome and runs contrary to the accepted scientific testimony at the Climate Committee meeting last year that importing fracked gas from the US has a carbon-equivalent footprint 44% greater than that of the coal of Moneypoint (without even considering the emissions from the LNG transport itself) . This is because the future review proposed by the Department does not consider the most potent emissions from leaked methane upstream - the  non-territorial emissions - from fracking and is only comparing the emissions released when coal and gas are burned. That is called gaming the system by setting the parameters of the study to get the outcome the Department wants and that is why political oversight of climate assessments are necessary in order to have evidence-based decision making in a transparent manner.   

The assessment of Methane Emissions promised by the European Commission for the 5th PCI list of projects in two years time is also gaming the system and pre-judging the assessment of fracked gas imports by only assessing the emissions taking place in the European Union and not the full life-cycle, non-territorial emissions from US fracked gas imports.

With two ongoing high-court legal challenges against the proposed Shannon LNG fracked gas import plan with no assessment of the climate impacts, a national consensus is building that there is no longer any tolerance for the importation of fracked gas into Ireland, given that we have already banned fracking in Ireland due to the negative health and climate impacts.