|
The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar needs to clarify
if there is a policy on no new LNG terminals in the Shannon Estuary, as
per the Fianna Fail and Fine Gael lettter sent to the Green Party on
April 28th, 2020. That letter was the basis of Trust on which the
Green Party went in to negotiations with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.
The Programme for Goverement can only succeed if all parties act
in good faith. Last night, the Taoiseach stated "But
I should say one factual thing though. What we have agreed to in
relation to Shannon LNG is to remove it from what's called the Projects
of Common Interest List. So it is not something that will receive
government subsidies anymore. That doesn't mean it is removed from An
Bord Pleanala. This is a private
company and they can still go to An Bord Pleanala, still potentially
get planning permission for it and still build it if they want to. But,
it's just that it won't be a government-supported project anymore. We will be supporting something different, something better". On April 28th Leo Varadkar and Micheal Martin sent a letter to Eamon Ryan where they stated: “Both
of our parties accept that as we move towards carbon neutrality, it
does not make sense to build new large-scale fossil fuel infrastructure
such as liquid natural gas import terminals. While
additional security of gas supply could be beneficial, we have secure
supply at present from the Corrib Gas Field and the United Kingdom." The full words were as follows: "It's
a bitter pill for people to swallow in West Limerick and North Kerry in
particular, who had been anticipating this investment that would have
created about 50 permanent jobs in the region, which would have been
important to the region. But, you know, I first heard about this
project about 12 years ago, when I was the energy spokesperson in
opposition for Fine Gael. I met with Hess. I remember Jimmy Deenihan
was at those meetings at the time. And the world has moved on a lot
since then.
The idea back then is that you would import fracked [???] gas probably
from America and Africa [huh???] bringing in to a terminal there and
that then would spin off industrial development - data centers - in the
region, But so much has changed in the last 14 years and public
attitudes have changed. And companies like Amazon and Facebook, when
they're building their data centres. they don't want anything to do
with fracked gas, or even fossil fuels
at all. They want their data centres to be powered by renewable energy.
In fact, they insist on it. And that's the way things are going
increasingly the way things are going in terms of multinationals and
industrial investment. So, I think the best thing that can happen out
of this is that we have a replacement project that can be of more value
to the region using the deepwater ports at Moneypoint and Foynes and
Tarbert for offshore wind energy, for hydrogen, for things like that,
that will bring more jobs and actually be more sustainable investment.
And that's the kind of thing that I want to pursue, and pursue it
quickly through a dedicated task force over the next few months. But I
should say one factual thing though. What we have agreed to in relation
to Shannon LNG is to remove it from what's called the Projects of
Common Interest List. So it is not something that will receive
government subsidies anymore. That doesn't mean it is removed from An
Bord Pleanala. This is a private company and they can still go to An
Bord Pleanala, still potentially get planning permission for it and
still build it if they want to. But, it's just that it won't be a
government-supported project anymore. We will be supporting something
different, something better."
|
