As the Middle East is in turmoil, we are witnessing another spike in the price of fossil fuels, which still power too much of our economy. Our energy system needs to meet three key challenges in the year ahead.

It needs to provide affordable energy, which will allow us to travel and warm our homes without breaking the bank. It needs to provide security of supply so we are not at risk of energy shortages in a turbulent world. We need to decarbonise our energy system to address the climate crisis and improve air quality around our homes. The Green Party has always argued that the only way for us to meet these three interconnected challenges is for us to scale up wind, solar and energy storage at pace. One of the big changes between this Government and the previous one is that this Government has identified the use of LNG as a key part of its energy strategy. This is seen not just in the proposal for a State-owned terminal in Clare but in the wider removal of policies like the ban on fracked gas that will serve private LNG providers. I hope the impacts of this war on energy pricing cause the Taoiseach to change his policy. Embracing LNG, as the Taoiseach proposes, fails to deliver affordability. It actually locks us in to the continued cycle of energy price shocks. We have the evidence of this in the spike in gas prices over the last few days. Nor does LNG provide us with security of supply. Qatar's decision yesterday to shut its Ras Laffan gas terminal shows how fickle gas supplies can be across the world. An Irish LNG terminal will leave the US as the main supplier of LNG imports and thereby place our energy security at the whim of the Trump Administration.

Of course, LNG is the exact opposite of decarbonisation as the fuel is two thirds more carbon intensive than traditional natural gas according to research from the International Energy Agency. Ireland needs its own energy so we can make our own choices, yet the ORESS 1 offshore renewable energy projects all seem to be stuck in the mud. The State has a target of 5 GW of offshore renewable wind energy by 2030. At this point it looks like the Taoiseach's Government will achieve none of that. We are in a position now, with the decommissioning of the Arklow Bank, where we may actually have less offshore renewable energy at the end of this Government than at its beginning. What is the Taoiseach's best estimate of when we will see the 5 GW of offshore wind delivered? In light of the curtailing of supply and the huge spike in the cost of LNG in recent days, will the Taoiseach reconsider the Government's policy to introduce LNG into our energy mix as it fails all three tests of affordability, security of supply and decarbonisation?

I disagree with the very false narrative the Deputy has put before the House in respect of the Government's position on renewables. It is a deliberately created false narrative by the Green Party in order to present the idea that it is indispensable to climate change. I have to say that strongly because I really reject what the Deputy has said. I think it is wrong and it is deliberately wrong. We are one year in government. Any delays in offshore wind, for example, cannot be laid at the hands of this Government because the Green Party had that portfolio for the last five years, subsequent to 2020. The Deputy must be well aware of the challenges. We are totally focused on offshore wind and getting that out there. One of the changes I have made is to establish a clearing house for offshore wind. I brought industry in. You guys refused to do that for five years-----

No.

You did.

They did nothing.

I had them around the table. The Secretary General of my Department chairs it. I attend it and I chair for the hour and go through it. We have brought in industry and every single Government Department. We have talked to all the various agencies involved as well to look at any generic obstacles that we can remove, or any barriers to accelerate offshore wind. We have carried out an onshore wind revolution in this country over many decades now. Every party that was in government over the last 30 years, and the county councils, have facilitated that. The Deputy should acknowledge that. We have not shifted our focus. I want to get it done as quickly as we possibly can. It is absolutely essential. It is wrong of the Deputy to say that somehow we have moved to LNG as opposed to offshore wind. The evidence does not suggest that. Why did we move to create an LNG strategic reserve? The Deputy should know this too. It is for security. The papers and the files in the Department are very clear. The advices are very clear. Deputy O'Gorman talked about security of supply. Because of security vulnerabilities, if anything happened to our gas interconnectors our economy would be stalled after ten days. That is the advice. We need a security backup. A State-owned strategic reserve facility is being established to give us that backup in the event of malicious or malign forces undermining the gas interconnectors. That is not fanciful. We just have to look at what happened in the Baltic Sea with interference and interventions with various pieces of infrastructure. We know our subsea cables have been monitored. We know the gas connectors were monitored. The Irish Naval Service and UK divers had to inspect them, after a particular ship of the shadow fleet lingered over those gas pipelines, to make sure nothing untoward had happened. That is the reality. The Deputy should not paint that as some sort of shift away from our climate and our commitment to offshore wind. I think that is very unfair.

The Taoiseach has not been able to provide me with any firm sense of when that renewable energy from offshore wind will start to feed into our national grid. What we know when it comes to security of supply is that Qatar has shut off its entire production on the understandable basis of being attacked in one of the most unstable regions in the world. Is that what security of supply looks like to the Taoiseach? The price of LNG shot up by 46% yesterday. Is that what affordability looks like to the Taoiseach? I am not going to make the decarbonisation argument to the Taoiseach, as I am more and more convinced that it is not an issue of particular importance to the Taoiseach's Government any more. On the basis of affordability and on the basis of security of supply, LNG fails the test. It is the Government's policy to hard-wire that failed approach into our energy system. This will leave Irish households vulnerable to consistently higher prices and leave the State vulnerable to energy shocks caused by international events like we are seeing right now.

The Deputy keeps articulating his false narrative, but that does not make the narrative true. It is a dishonest portrayal of the Government's commitment in this area. We are a bit more pragmatic than the Green Party was, I would respectfully suggest. I have great respect for the Deputy and his party in many areas-----

They destroyed the country.

-----but we are far more pragmatic in how we are going to deliver this and get it done faster than would have been the case.

They destroyed it.

Last year the RESS 5 and the ORESS Tonn Nua auctions were delivered and at a very competitive price for consumers with both auctions clearing. I will not go through the specific prices. RESS 5 involves 1 GW of new renewable electricity capacity. The Deputy knows this. A lot of good groundwork was done by the last Government but the Deputy's predecessor knew exactly the timelines as well as everybody else. I would argue that what we are doing now in offshore wind is accelerating it to a greater extent than would have been the case if we had not taken over the portfolio, to be blunt about it.

On the gas, it is about security of supply. That is the core issue there. If anything was to happen to current supplies in terms of the interconnector, we would be in deep trouble. The Deputy should at least acknowledge that.