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Energy - April 11, 2025
Irelands policy relationship with liquefied natural gas (LNG) is once again at the centre of the country’s political and economic debate on how best to achieve energy security and energy independence.
This follows the decision of the Irish Cabinet in March to grant approval to Ireland’s first floating storage regasification and LNG facility with an investment value of €300m. The terminal will act as a state-led emergency gas reserve. The importance of this cannot be overestimated. One analysis, undertaken in the context of concerns raised in the Security of Supply Review regarding Ireland’s dependency on pipeline imports of natural gas from Great Britain has highlighted that. Ireland is one of the most energy import dependent countries in the EU, with 71% of all natural gas supplies being imported via two gas interconnector pipelines from Great Britain
The broader political reaction to the Government approval has been decidedly mixed, with the main left of centre parties defiant in their opposition, while the main governing parties of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael along with a sizeable cohort of independent non-aligned members of parliament being fully supportive.
The decision does represents a major break with the policy adopted by the previous administration which included Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, but crucially, which also included the Green Party.
The Irish green Party was however almost totally wiped out following the 2024 election which saw their parliamentary party numbers drop from 12 seats, to 11 with only it leader, Roderic O’Gorman, being elected following a prolonged count.
In contrast Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael returned with a healthy 86, just short of an overall majority. There is a clear sense that this has emboldened the two parties to jettison policies which though previously favoured by the Green’s, were strongly criticised by those who sought to secure a greater degree of energy independence that did not rely exclusively on renewables.
The renewed focus on LNG infrastructure also coincides with broader European initiatives aimed at diversifying energy sources following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Countries such as Germany and Poland have accelerated investments in LNG terminals to reduce geopolitical vulnerability, suggesting Ireland’s policy shift aligns with a wider EU strategic repositioning on energy security.
The reaction of environmental campaigning groups such as Friends of the Earth has been swift and predictably condemnatory; a position that is consistent with its long held opposed to the expansion of LNG infrastructure and export approvals due to what it perceives as their environmental and climate impacts.
Ireland’s previous Governments had however expressed strong support for LNG as an element of the country’s attempts to diversify energy supplies. This followed the recognition that domestic natural gas fields such as those located in Kinsale would eventually begin decline.
Over two decades ago the Shannon LNG project, proposed by Shannon LNG Ltd, submitted plans to build a €650 million LNG import terminal on the Shannon Estuary in County Kerry.
Initial planning then began in the mid-2000s amid widespread support for the project as a strategic infrastructure development to enhance energy security. The project was subsequently designated as a “strategic infrastructure development” by Ireland’s planning authority, An Bord Pleanála, allowing it to bypass local planning processes and go directly to the national planning board.
Within the Irish debates on this issue there have also been suggestions that the state could use spare LNG storage capacity in the UK for storing LNG for Ireland’s own use. This it was argued not only could provide the benefits of a future-proofed emergency gas storage and/or back-up to direct access to emergency LNG, but it would also allow the state time to transition to a wholly renewable system that would achieve energy security while also reducing the climate impact.
However, such arguments were to lose political traction and from 2008 a concerted campaign focusing on the environmental impact of importing LNG, that strongly emphasised its link to fracked gas began to cohere leading to a level of political caution around how to proceed.
The question and the concerns were to become somewhat moot by 2011 due to the deep economic scarring caused by the economic crash. The project did however remain on the EU’s Projects of Common Interest (PCI) list, indicating European-level support for LNG infrastructure. Domestically this meant that Ireland would have to continue to its near total reliance on gas imports via UK interconnectors.
By 2016 the proposal to develop LNG infrastructure was actively on the receiving end of major policy criticism by the climate campaign groups within Ireland and internationally.
This was due in the main to anti-fracked gas campaigns which were extraordinarily successful in associating fracked gas extraction methods and outcomes with adverse environmental and public health impacts such as methane leaks, groundwater pollution. The Paris Agreement adopted in 2015 also placed particular focus on fracked gas and LNG as a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
These developments led to major policy shifts and for the duration of the Green/Fianna Fail and Fine Gael Government-2020-2024-the political will to pursue LNG, copper-fastened by the numerical reliance on the Greens by the two larger parties ensured that LNG terminal was all but dead in the water. In fact, Ireland’s Programme for Government published in 2020 clearly set out that the Government would not support the importation of fracked gas from other countries as Ireland moves towards carbon neutrality.
This position was also embedded within the Policy Statement on the Importation of Fracked Gas published by Ireland’s Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications in May 2021.
A major campaign of industry lobbying and a growing international energy market uncertainty did lead to Government commissioning a Review of the Security of Energy Supply of Ireland’s Electricity and Natural Gas Systems. Ironically this was led by the Green Minister who headed the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications.
The Review was eventually to propose two policy options as part of a broad package of measures that it found, if developed, would mitigate risks to security of energy supply in Ireland.
The two policy options were:
• Policy Option 1: Under this policy option, the private sector is enabled to develop and operate new commercial gas infrastructure in Ireland. The type of new gas infrastructure that may be developed under this option includes commercial gas storage and/or LNG import facilities in Ireland.
• Policy Option 2: Under this policy option, the State will support the development of strategic gas infrastructure in Ireland as a way to enhance security of energy supply. The ‘strategic’ element of this option means that the gas infrastructure developed would only be used as a means to avoid unmet energy demand in Ireland.
Ireland has now decided to proceed with an option closely aligned to Policy Option 2. While the current Minister of the Environment Darragh O’Brien has framed it as a temporary measure for energy security, there is little doubt in Irish political circles that a situation of complete national dependence on gas imports is simply not sustainable.
This and the effective obliteration of the Green Party who championed the anti-LNG policy has ensured that the project, despite Fexcluvocal criticisms will proceed at pace and is unlikely to be reversed.
This is not to say that the approval to proceed with LNG infrastructure will not be challenged in the Irish courts by the well-funded and disproportionately influential networks of green and environmental NGO’s.