Sharon Keogan questions Ireland's nuclear ban as interconnector nears

Thank you. The Minister, you are very welcome in here this morning and I want to congratulate you on your elevation into this role. I rise today to ask the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications a simple question. Where does nuclear power fit into Ireland's energy future? I ask this not in the abstract but with real urgency because the Celtic interconnector is due to come online in 2026 and it is time we faced reality. Right now under Irish law air grid is legally barred from using electricity generated by nuclear fission and yet in practice we import it anyway. In 2020 nearly 1% of our electricity came from British nuclear plants so what we have is a legal ban that does not stop nuclear energy it just stops us from talking honesty about it. We are standing on a tight road on one side rising energy demands not least from data centres which could consume up to 40% maybe even 70% of our electricity within a decade. On the other hand a plan to phase out fossil fuels without a reliable replacement. That is not a transition that is a gamble. And we need to ask what happens if the wind does not blow? What happens when the grid is under pressure? People working from home, families trying to stay warm in winter, small businesses already squeezed by costs, they are the ones who pay the price. In some cases that price is more than financial, it is about wellbeing, even survival. Now I know the word nuclear still makes some people nervous, but this is not 1986. The technologies have changed, the safe standards have changed, our climate challenge has changed. We need clean, reliable and consistent energy and nuclear can deliver that. France knows this. That is why over 65% of their electricity comes from nuclear power and that is the power we will be connecting through with this Celtic interconnector. So here is the contradiction, we ban nuclear generation here while plugging ourselves into a system that runs on it elsewhere. That is not leadership. That is outsourcing our responsibility. So if the Minister believes, as his predecessor said, that nuclear is part of our future, then I ask, when will we stop pretending it is not part of our present? Let us bring clarity to this conversation, let us amend the legislation or at the very least open a serious national review on the role nuclear could play and should play. We owe it to ourselves and to the people of this country to plan for the future, not just posture for it. Thank you very much and thanks for the gracious introduction by my friend and colleague, former colleague, Senator Keoghan. It is the first time I have had an opportunity to be back in the Senate since my election to the other House. I have had fond memories of 10 years here, five at the beginning and five more recently. So thank you for that and I look forward to being back on many occasions in the future. I just want to thank Senator Keoghan for raising this important issue. The Government, as you know, has an energy vision to fulfil the commitment to increase the proportion of renewable electricity by 80 per cent by 2030. In Ireland, nuclear-powered electricity generation plans remain prohibited and there are no plans to change this position. The Senate has previously debated the option of nuclear energy in Ireland as part of a broader debate on carbon policy and the practical challenges outlined in relation to nuclear generation in Ireland are still relevant and still exist. The priority of this Government is on taking urgent action to make electricity generation in Ireland more sustainable. The Climate Action Plan sets out a roadmap to halve Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and to reach net zero emissions by 2050. The annual Climate Action Plan to date also recognises the need for a range of supporting measures to enable the transformation of the electricity sector. This will involve the development of a balanced portfolio of technologies to facilitate the energy transition, complementing other measures such as demand-side response, network development and interconnection to support a grid with increased levels of renewable electricity. I am delighted that the Senator has highlighted the Celtic interconnector which will return Ireland's most direct connectivity to the European electricity market and that will have benefits for consumers too. This means greater energy security and increased systems resilience for Ireland, the importance of which has been highlighted by recent events on the Iberian Peninsula. Interconnection facilitates the system balancing necessary to incorporate variable renewables and it assists in managing our emissions targets and enables Ireland to take advantage of the energy mixes of our energy partners mitigating the Irish infrastructure investment burden. Interconnectors also create competitive market pressures designed to drive down costs to the Irish consumer, all of which you identified as constraints and concerns from an Irish perspective. I said out in the national policy statement on electricity interconnection in 2023, Ireland is on course to increase its connectivity capacity five-fold over the course of this decade. The Greenlink interconnector commenced commercial operation in January, doubling existing connectivity capacity. The Celtic interconnector will be operational in 2027 and a further connection to the UK. The Mars Connect is currently progressing its regulatory and permitting journey. So Ireland's energy vision is clear. We do not have uranium. We do have some of the best offshore wind resources in the world and building on the renewables progress on land. The east coast offshore wind farms are at a planning permission stage following the first offshore renewable electricity support scheme, which is often referred to as O-Res. From the last six years, we will be able to expand the future. Since I was being in the future, the O-Res. The O-Res. You will be familiar with, the Senator, approved its first offshore renewable demap off the south coast with a further ORS plan this year. Building, on the vital experience, Ireland will be progressing a national ORE, offshore renewable electricity, demap intended to deliver a further 15 gigawatt of offshore wind generation. We intend to make further announcements on that later in the summer. We intend to take advantage of the energy domestically, delivering decarbonised economic growth, and the Programme for Government also commits Ireland to position itself as a future electricity operator, with Irish wind facilitating the achievement of our energy partners for their climate and energy goals. Further electricity interconnection will be key to that. We are working directly, and I will conclude on this with the UK, France and Belgium to explore further connection. We are also working through regional forests such as the North Sea Energy Cooperation and the offshore TSO Collaboration. We are also working with the European Commission to help shape the evolution of the European Energy Policy and to make Ireland central to Europe's shared energy future. I can clearly see that we are going to be relying on offshore resources going forward for our electricity provision for this country, and that is not good enough. It won't do. As you well know, many of these are at very early stages. We are now at 2025. A lot of these are going to be held up by planning, and we are not going to reach that 2030 target. I am not saying that the discussion revolving around this nuclear option will happen within five years either. But it is a conversation that this Government should be willing to have. We are already taking in nuclear power through the back door. We are outsourcing that responsibility to the French. Let's be brave. That is what leadership is about. Sometimes you have to take very difficult decisions to be of the best advantage to the people that you represent. So I am disappointed with this. I do not think our energy vision is good enough. I think nuclear is part of that, and I would like to see our Government move towards that provision. I know you firmly believe in this, and I know you are passionate about it, and I do not question the sincerity, but I just have to tell you what the Government position is. You raise an important point, and it is that of the planning permissions that are required even to get wind turbines in place. There is significant pushback against that on land. The plan would be at sea. We believe there will be less objections because it is away from the shore. But if it is difficult to get planning permissions for turbines, I am sure you will accept trying to move the public towards nuclear reactors in Ireland. That is a whole new ball game, and I suspect whatever potential difficulties there might be on planning for either offshore or onshore wind turbines, I would not underestimate the complications and the pushback from the public if we were to move on nuclear reactors onshore. Even to get basic grid capacity, and you know from your own general area, the north-south interconnector, how communities are so adverse to any infrastructure like that. So I believe the best chance we have of energy security is to harness that huge potential that is offshore. And I do take your point, and you make it very, very well that the wind does not blow all the time, but there is work ongoing when the wind is blowing in a significant way and the demand is not there, through electrolysis it can be converted to hydrogen and onwards to ammonia, which is a stable source of securing the energy and storing it. So there is an overarching plan, and maybe we will have a debate in the House again at some stage, if you want to do that, where I can set out much more broadly the Government's vision for a safe, secure supply of electricity to meet our targets. But thanks again for your interest, Geoff.