Irish people, shivering in their own homes, have only themselves to blame

Posted on Tuesday, December 11, 2012 at 04:00 AM

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Irish people have been turning off the heating in their
homes because of the cost of gas

Saturday's Irish Independent reported that many Irish people are turning off the heat and shivering in their homes thanks to the cost of natural gas in Ireland. Frozen Irish people is a result of a combination of the collapse in the Irish economy and the doubling in the residential price of natural gas over the last 7 years.

The real kicker here is that for the most part Irish people have no one to blame but ourselves. In order to ensure that natural gas is as expensive as possible we have added taxes onto the price of gas and worked tirelessly to stymie any attempt at increasing production of natural gas in Ireland.

The additional "carbon tax" was added a few years ago. The purpose of this tax was two-fold: (1) to provide subsidies for the wind energy production ~~boondoggle~~ err, industry and (2) to encourage Irish people to simply use less gas - that is, they want us to heat our homes less and cook less.

At the time the carbon tax was imposed on us the Irish government was a coalition of a big party - Fianna Fáil - and a small party - the Green Party. The carbon tax was a case of the Green Party tail wagging the Fianna Fáil dog. Yet, even after we threw them out of office and obliterated the Greens' political representation the new government didn't have the courage to reverse the "carbon tax."

The carbon tax is frustrating, but not as frustrating as what's going on with the production of natural gas. It's becoming increasingly clear that the seabeds around Ireland are rich in oil and natural gas, especially natural gas. Yet we have been unable to properly exploit this resource thanks to small groups of protesters holding up production.

It's the same with the gas held deep beneath the rocks in Ireland. The process to free that gas and bring it to the surface so that it can be distributed to the homes and schools and businesses of Ireland is called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

The introduction of fracking is the source of America's energy revolution, which has seen prices of natural gas fall sharply and will lead America to energy independence. Fracking could well work a similar miracle in Ireland, but we lack the political will to ensure that local concerns are allayed and trouble-making environmentalists* are sidelined.

We can't even import cheap natural gas from America thanks to the ridiculous regulatory situation. Hess Corporation and other partners want to import liquefied natural gas from America to a new facility in Kerry, but despite getting approval from the planners in 2007 the facility is still mired in red tape and may remain so through 2014.

So for the foreseeable future Ireland will be denied cheap natural gas, whether Irish or imported from America. The carbon tax, however, will remain as a daily kick in the head, an additional extra cost on top of our exorbitantly expensive natural gas. The Irish government's position remains "keep shivering." We vote for them, though, so we have only oursevles to blame.

* The ability of environmentalist protesters to stifle this industry actually makes me wonder if we'll ever see the oil coming ashore in Cork.

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Madeliene | Dec 14, 2012, 05:03 PM EST

Could be worse, you could have obama. Sounds as if you have too many liberals there huh?

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NRGsystems | Dec 12, 2012, 04:58 AM EST

I like the tone of this article but I disagree with most of what The Yank has to say. The core of The Yank's message is that carbon tax and production constraints are the cause of high gas prices. In fact carbon tax only adds about 5% to a gas bill. The wholesale price of European gas has risen 20% in the past quarter and has doubled since 2009. This is the real cause of high gas prices: European demand has outstripped supply. Supply of European gas is barely affected by tiny discoveries in Ireland like Corrib gas. So when Corrib comes on line, it will be sold into the market at market prices and Irish gas prices will barely budge. The idea that somebody discovering gas in Ireland or shipping in LNG will sell it to the Irish at a knock-down price is ludicrous. Ireland is well connected to the European gas grid by subsea pipelines and already has access to many sources of supply including LNG imports. Carbon tax does not subsidise wind power. The tax is meant to pay for re-insulating houses, rural transport and winter solid fuel subsidies for the poor. In fact it is paid into the central exchequer and used to fund whatever. Wind is directly subsidized through a small levy on electricity bills, smaller than the levy used to subsidize peat power stations. One reason that Irish people are shivering is that their houses were built to incredibly low standards of heat insulation. Once you stop heating an Irish house, it often goes cold within an hour. During the boom, previous governments chose to permit these low building standards to help their friends in the construction industry. Now the state pays grants with public money to retrofit insulation on cold houses. How does that make sense? As for a return to the fireplace, Fine Gael/Labour have just announced a new tax on turf and coal sold for fireplaces. So maybe not everything is the fault of the green party?

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TheYank | Dec 11, 2012, 11:46 PM EST

TayandCake, I was going to say that, but I thought it was just my imagination.

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TayandCake | Dec 11, 2012, 10:02 PM EST

I see a lot of people going back to the fireplace now

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Towngate | Dec 11, 2012, 02:18 PM EST

hey,Yank ... maybe they are just afraid that if all the gas is sucked out from the rocks beneath them, the whole shamrocky moss-bank will finally sink into the sea!

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RedBranch | Dec 11, 2012, 06:45 AM EST

Right on as always Yank. A recent trip to Mayo took me to remote Rossport where the Shell to Sea protestors are active. It is eeriely similar to Northern Ireland in the 70s. huge fortified steel walls running for kilometres with local Mayo men (well paid I would suggest) as RUC muscle. All this extra expense, to say nothing of the legal wranglings and as yet not a single cubic centimetre of hydrocarbon has been bought ashore. Freeze on in poverty Ireland. Oh, and the political party in sympathy with the protesters; that would be Sinn Fein.

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