Irish Examiner view: Will Britain turn off the gas taps as energy crisis escalates?

Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin, and Gazprom have already made it clear that energy reduction to the EU and other Western democracies is going to be a primary weapon for their winter campaign.

And there are widespread reports, emanating originally from the Financial Times, that the Westminster government is war-gaming a response that could include cutting off its pipelines to Belgium and Holland in the event of a general shortage.

Rationing fears

Many European leaders fear that rationing is on its way. Ireland imports 70% of the gas it needs through connections with Britain. The rest comes from Corrib.

The lesson that we must learn is that we have paid insufficient attention and priority to matters of energy security within the Republic and in respect of our vulnerability at the outer edge of Europe.

The audit of our position, first commissioned in 2019 by then minister Richard Bruton, has not been published and the sound we can hear all around us is the chickens coming home to roost.

Green hydrogen provision is just a gleam in the eye, there are no, and will never be, according to Environment Minister Eamon Ryan, any liquefied natural gas facilities. Gas accounts for more energy consumption in Ireland than all our use of renewables combined.

Electric Ireland has announced that the price of electricity is to increase by 11% and gas by 32% from next month, just three months after another substantial price rise in May.

Before Brexit, Britain was compelled under EU law to consider our needs.

But that safeguard has gone, allowing Westminster to act unilaterally.

Paul Johnston, the ambassador in Dublin, is on the record this weekend that his country will not cut off gas supplies to Ireland.

But Mr Johnston is only an ambassador and his comments run in parallel with briefings from the National Grid that it may impose “involuntary” restrictions on energy supplies if other emergency measures do not reduce demand. Russian imports account for less than 4% of Britain’s gas.

Frosty relations

Despite close links across the Irish Sea, the relationship between Ireland and Britain is increasingly frosty and in sad decline since the Good Friday Agreement. From the British perspective Ireland is viewed as flag wavers for Brussels over Brexit while we consider the Johnson government as morally bankrupt and duplicitous. Both perspectives are overstated.

Attacking Britain has become the default position in this country for many politicians, for commentators and columnists who need to fill space, and for British ex-pat celebrities who have relocated to Ireland.

There is manifestly much to criticise at present in Westminster in what the RAF would describe as a “target-rich environment.” But that will be the same RAF who help to protect Irish air space.

So, this situation is complicated, interwoven, and will not be helped by soundbites. 

Both countries need to work together economically to get through the next nine months.

It seems highly unlikely that the British would allow gas to flow into the North but discriminate against the Republic at the same time by reducing supply despite being locked in what seems to be an intractable political dispute with us over the Protocol. 

In addition, Norway is a principal provider of gas through the existing infrastructure and, although not an EU member, will not agree to being cut off from other European customers.

It was Tsar Nicholas 1 who boasted that “Russia has two generals in whom she can confide — Generals Janvier and Février.” Vladimir Putin, lover of imperial history that he is, makes the same calculation.

And Ireland and Britain need to understand that their mutual interests reside in seeing that threat off until next spring at the very least. And behave towards each other accordingly.