Government Should Look Elsewhere to Secure Power

national | anti-capitalism | press release Tuesday November 25, 2008 15:10 by éirígí PRO press at eirigi dot org

éirígí chairperson Brian Leeson today (Tuesday) said that Twenty-Six County minister Seán Power’s pronouncement’s that Ireland needs to increase its indigenous energy resources flies in the face of his government’s behaviour on the issue.

Announcing the opening of the 2009 Rockall Licensing Round yesterday, Power, a minister of state in the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, said that: “finding and producing our indigenous oil and gas is critical to strengthening Ireland's security of energy supply and reducing our reliance on imported fuels”.

Leeson responded: “It is a bit rich for a Fianna Fáil TD to be talking about ‘strengthening Ireland’s security of energy supply’ when, in fact, Ireland has no security of energy supply because of the actions of Mr Power’s colleagues.

“Fianna Fáil have been the chief protagonists in allowing our gas and oil resources to become the private property of a few, who will sell them to the highest bidder. Over the last 20 years, the Twenty-Six County government has run the state-owned Irish National Petroleum Corporation into the ground and effectively given away massive amounts of our natural resources to multinationals.

“The Petroleum Corporation, if properly funded and efficiently run, had the potential to provide ‘security of energy supply’ for the people of Ireland. Instead, politicians like Dick Spring and Fianna Fáil minister Ray Burke decided that the people’s energy needs came second to the interests of the big energy companies.

“The outworking of this disgraceful policy has been seen all too clearly in north-west Mayo over the last number of years.”

Leeson continued: “If Seán Power is serious about ‘funding and producing our indigenous oil and gas’ then he knows what needs to happen.

“A serious and well-funded state-owned energy exploration body needs to be established that will have the aim of providing Ireland with ‘security of energy supply’.

“Furthermore, any deals the Dublin government has made with private energy companies, particularly the Erris deal, should be renegotiated with a view to ensuring all Ireland’s natural resources are brought under public control.

“Expostulating about the need to secure our resources while courting those who aim to take them from us is the height of hypocrisy.”
ENDS.

Note to editor: éirígí is an Ireland-wide, socialist republican political party, formed in 2006 to provide a vehicle for the national, social and economic liberation of Ireland.