The Government's latest move to ban new oil and gas exploration comes at a time when Ireland has become extremely vulnerable to any supply line issues in post Brexit UK, where we import almost all of our fuel requirements from. One would have assumed that this issue would have been taken into account in any decision to ban oil and gas exploration but this doesn't seem to be the case. The words import, dependency, UK or supply do not even appear in the Government briefing. As things stand, it is left up to commentators like me (unpaid I might add vs the civil servants and ministers who have had payrises) to draw attention to the facts and risks of the current situation.
Here is a graph of the annual net fuel imports since 2010, when the National Renewable Energy Action Plan took effect. All data comes from the SEAI so is easily available to Government advisors.