Calls grow to save bill barring oil and gas exploration

A senior manager at ESB has criticised the Government’s blocking of a bill aimed at preventing new licences for oil and gas exploration.

Cormac Madden, ESB’s environment and sustainability manager, said he made his criticisms in a personal capacity but that they are not incompatible with any company policy.

In a lengthy Twitter thread, Mr Madden said he is “very disappointed” that the Climate Emergency Measures Bill was stopped and warned that the country risks increasing its dependency on fossil fuels. He said the bill should have been allowed go to the soon-to-be created Climate Action Council for assessment.

“If we find fossil fuel reserves and build new fossil fuel infrastructure to extract them, are we going to be able to simply shut them off when our carbon budget is up or when Ireland no longer needs fossil fuels?" he wrote.

“The evidence of the international fossil fuel industry’s approach to the climate crisis is clear. No sign that, when the time comes, they will meekly walk away from their assets. We will have created a dependency that will always crave another fix."

Mr Madden emphasised that he supports the Government's Climate Action Plan. "Let’s start living it now," he wrote.

Above all no vague, open-ended arrangements for oil companies.

An ESB employee for 25 years, Mr Madden took on his current role two years ago and was co-author of the company’s own roadmap to decarbonisation of energy.

His remarks come as pressure mounts on the Government to revisit the bill which had Dáil backing but was hit by the ‘money message’ mechanism which allows the blocking of legislation that may pose a strain on State resources.

Bill proposer, Brid Smith, is seeking a judicial review of the move. The Stop Climate Chaos coalition of 33 NGOs yesterday said the invoking of the money message mechanism is “an ill-founded and undemocratic abuse of parliamentary procedure”.

ESB said: "ESB does not have interests in upstream gas or oil exploration and so the Climate Emergency Bill would not have a direct impact on us. To this end, ESB has not taken any individual position on the Bill."