A TD has told Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, that he and his government colleagues “are moving the country at speed toward an energy price precipice”.
Independent TD for Laois-Offaly, Carol Nolan, was speaking as the Rural Independent Group of TDs – of which she is a member – moved a private member’s motion in the Dáil aimed at tackling Ireland’s energy security deficits in the Dáil.
The motion calls on the government to “urgently reopen to full capacity”, the peat-fired power stations at Lough Ree in Lanesboro, Co. Longford and the West Offaly Power Station in Shannonbridge, Co. Offaly.
“There is zero sense that Minister Ryan or the leadership of Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael really understand the depth and scale of the crisis that the country, and its commercial and domestic life, is facing,” the Independent TD said.
“The fact is that we are heading into a storm at a time when safe harbour rarely appeared so distant.
“It would not be as bad perhaps if we had trust and confidence in the captains of the ship of state to steer us through this crisis and to get us safely out the other side,” Nolan remarked.
“However, the reality is that it is precisely those people who have set us upon this course of fragile energy security who are the same people tasked with steering us a safe passage.
“Despite all their rhetoric, the people at the wheel appear blind to the dangers we are facing.
“They seem incapable of recognising that a sane response in the face of such a crisis would be to apply the brakes or even reverse course, especially when it is now increasingly obvious what role our current green energy policy has played in bringing us to this point.
Deputy Nolan added that the government is not just “boxing itself in and closing off legitimate energy policy options”; it is is “dragging the rest of the country along with it, kicking and screaming”.
“Only this morning I met with a famer who showed me his latest energy bill that had increased by several hundred percent.
“They are driving people to the brink and all that we are hearing is ‘steady-as-she-goes’ and that the EU has a plan,” Nolan commented.