On 4 March, the Taoiseach told me, rather tetchily, "There is no resiling or rowing back from our commitment to addressing the issue of climate change". All I had done that day was to raise concerns that the new Government was not serious about climate action. That view was grounded in my reading of the programme for Government and the Taoiseach's ministerial appointments. He was quick to tell me then how wrong I was but I will give him an example of why I was right. On energy infrastructure, it is clear that the Government is making all the wrong choices. Crucially, it is making the wrong choice between clean renewables and polluting fossil fuels.

On Monday, Friends of the Irish Environment was granted leave for judicial review proceedings in respect of the Shannon liquefied natural gas, LNG, development. I am mindful not to comment on matters that are live before the courts, but Government policies on LNG are something about which the Taoiseach and I have spoken often. Our climate spokesperson, my Labour Party colleague Deputy Ciarán Ahern - whom we congratulate and welcome back from paternity leave this week - has taken up the matter with the new climate Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. We might recall that when in the Department of housing, the Minister opened the door to commercial LNG with his massive planning Act. At the time, he and the then environment Minister downplayed the impact of that change in policy. Now in the climate Department, the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, is implementing policies that clearly favour filthy fuels over clean energy infrastructure. When asked about it, Fianna Fáil talks up the energy security element but where is the wisdom or security in only now starting to build a gas terminal that does not fit with our emissions targets and will not even be ready until after the Government is supposed to have finished the transition to renewable energy? Meanwhile, sea levels and household energy bills are rising as the cost-of-living crisis deepens, and the profits of big energy companies are also rising. We are watching the impacts of climate change in the world around us and the Government is not doing enough to address it.

In April, we learned that 30 wind turbines off the coast of Galway will not be built. Those turbines could have powered 350,000 homes each year and avoided 550,000 tonnes of emissions each year. They could have created a raft of new green jobs outside Dublin. The developer cited challenging market conditions in the offshore wind sector as a reason not to proceed. Who is to say that other projects such as this will not collapse? What is the Government doing about it?

LNG is not a cost-effective energy source, apart from the environmental damage involved. More than 61% of LNG projects are cancelled or abandoned. Providers are paid to stay on stand-by, waiting for the day we need them to help out with supply. The proposal before the courts is a ten-year capacity contract worth €494 million. Those costs are likely to be passed onto ordinary households through the capacity payments tariff when Ireland is already one of the most expensive countries in the EU for electricity. Hard-pressed households will be footing the bill again. What is the Government going to do about this? Will it invest in renewables instead of fossil fuels?

Just because the Deputy says something does not mean it is true. What I said to her on the most recent occasion she raised this issue, when she said she had read the programme for Government, was that the whole agenda was to create a narrative and presentation that this new Government, which is just a few months old, is somehow-----

Just answer the question.

Will the Deputy allow me to answer the question without the heckling and interrupting?

Please do. I was urging the Taoiseach to do so.

I know Sinn Féin's bona fides in climate change is exemplary.

The presentation of the narrative by Deputy Bacik is to characterise the Government as being somehow not in favour of measures to address climate change. Nothing could be further from the truth. The bottom line in terms of the climate action plan and the agenda ahead of us is that we are fundamentally committed to renewables and investment in them.

The Deputy mentioned a private application and litigation relating to it. That is not a Government initiative but a private sector initiative. People are entitled to take initiatives. The Government has announced an initiative on energy security. I say respectfully that it would be irresponsible of the Government not to act on the advice we have received in respect of the energy vulnerability of the country. We need sufficiency in renewables and the capacity to withstand any interruptions to our energy supply. This is a serious issue. I would not play it down or understate the energy security dimension to the decision taken by the Minister and the advice he received in respect of it. On another day, if things went wrong, there would be loud choruses in this House asking why decisions on energy security were not taken.

On renewables, everything we can do to accelerate offshore wind energy will be done. Previous Governments involving Fianna Fáil and other parties led the revolution on onshore wind in this country. We have a good record in respect of onshore wind and the integration of renewables with the electricity grid. It is a good story for Ireland at European level and elsewhere. The challenge now is to do it for offshore wind. We will do everything we can to accelerate renewables and endeavour to get offshore wind farms built as quickly as possible. The Government has already had a series of meetings about substantial investment in the electricity grid, which will be required. It will be of a significantly higher scale than what we invested over the previous five years under price review 5. Price review 6 will come close to doubling what was spent on the grid in the past five years.

On biodiversity, we have radically transformed the situation for the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Its budget has been doubled over the past four years. There has been a substantial increase in the numbers of staff. The Government is going to continue with that agenda.

I stand by my remarks. Actions speak louder than words. For all the Taoiseach's protestations, we are not seeing actions from this Government that indicate a seriousness about tackling climate change. This is not just a matter of presentation. The Taoiseach said it is irresponsible to oppose LNG. He again raised the issue of energy security but a commercial LNG plant is not about guaranteeing energy security. What would be ways of guaranteeing energy security would be investing in renewables, ensuring that we have decent infrastructure and using State investment in battery storage infrastructure. We are seeing reports from Gas Networks Ireland and EirGrid stating that the existing infrastructure is already capable of meeting future demand, even in the event of extreme supply disruption. Why do we need this commercial facility? Locking us into new fossil fuel infrastructure when our emissions are still so high will have a further effect. It will see Ireland further overshoot its climate targets so that families and households will foot the bill for the eye-watering fines associated with missing targets. That will be an issue for households in a cost-of-living crisis and there is no guarantee of energy security.

The Deputy knows that the emissions inventory report of the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, from July 2024 shows a decrease of 6.8% in Ireland's greenhouse gas in 2023 compared with 2022, which itself saw a 1.9% reduction on the previous year. This is the lowest that our greenhouse gas emissions have been in three decades below the 1990 baseline. That is significant given that in that period, we have had a population increase of 1.5 million, over 1 million new homes and more than 1 million extra vehicles on our roads. The performance by Ireland in respect of this issue has been quite strong. The previous Government made significant investments and decisions that are already bearing fruit and will continue to do so into the future. The energy security initiative will apply to State-led energy. The Deputy knows that. She is, I think deliberately, conflating that with a private sector initiative. I invite the Deputy to talk to the officials in the climate Department in respect of energy security.

We can arrange that briefing for the Deputy.