If there is one thing that US president Donald Trump has modelled for other politicians, it is the art of exercising power to get what you want. Frustrated with delays? No problem: just abolish the agency that conducts oversight or put your own guy in charge. Irked by environmental and climate assessments? Abandon the legal requirements. With the stroke of a sharpie, a modern politician set to Trump mode can make pollution and endangerment simply vanish.
In the surreal world in which we live, we are witnessing a grim departure from legal norms and evidence-based policymaking. Politicians who see themselves as having a mandate to “get things done” will increasingly try to bend or scrap the rules that have been carefully calibrated to protect the public interest.
Take, for example, the Irish Government’s General Scheme of the Strategic Gas Emergency Reserve Bill 2025. The Bill provides for the accelerated development of a strategic gas reserve. We are told it is a standard contingency plan – a State-led, temporary backup to ensure the lights stay on if gas pipelines fail. But a closer look at the legislative architecture reveals an alarming departure from legislative and institutional norms. Using the excuse that this facility is an “emergency” reserve, the Bill seeks to get around Irish and EU environmental assessment standards. Critics of the Bill, including Friends of the Irish Environment, see it as a “Trojan horse” that could punch a permanent hole in our climate governance.
Less than a fortnight ago, the Supreme Court in Coolglass Wind Farm Limited v An Coimisiún Pleanála provided long-awaited clarity on the legal weight of Ireland’s climate obligations. The court confirmed that section 15 of the Climate Act is not merely aspirational; it creates a real, enforceable legal obligation for all public bodies to perform their functions in a manner consistent with national climate objectives.
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Now the Strategic Gas Bill attempts to bypass this judicial landmark before the ink is even dry. Head 20 of the Bill introduces a watered-down consistency test, requiring the Minister and the commission to comply with the Climate Act only “to the extent that they consider practicable”. By substituting a verifiable legal test with the Minister’s personal evaluation, the scheme undermines the principle of effective judicial protection and prevents the courts from holding the State accountable to its climate obligations.
Even more egregious is head 20(2), which simply deems the project compliant with climate law in advance. As many of the submissions to the Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Energy and Environment argue, compliance cannot be legislated into existence; it must be proven through evidence-based assessment.
Perhaps the Bill’s most radical move is the wholesale disapplication of the Planning and Development Acts. These are the democratic safeguards that ensure independent assessment, public participation and a requirement to consider cleaner, less environmentally harmful alternatives. In their place, the Bill creates a bespoke, centralised ministerial consent framework. The same Minister responsible for energy security policy and designating the development will now have final approval over its environmental impact. The Bill compresses the time frames for environmental impact assessments and appropriate assessments, effectively reducing environmental scrutiny to a box-ticking exercise. This sets up a glaring conflict of interest and exposes the project to potential litigation and more delays.
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The Government insists this facility is a “transitional” measure. However, the infrastructure contemplated by the scheme will be long-lived and likely to operate well beyond the next two decades, risking a permanent lock-in to fossil fuel dependence. The Bill lacks enforceable sunset or decommissioning provisions.
This sets a chilling precedent: if the State can simply declare an “emergency” to bypass planning and climate law to build a gas terminal, there is little to stop the same logic from being applied to other high-emitting infrastructure, such as Dublin Airport. This “emergency” framing risks becoming a playbook for avoiding rigorous climate checks, potentially leading to stranded assets, more pollution and the erosion of public trust.
True energy security surely does not require us to break our own laws. To bring this Bill into alignment with the Coolglass judgment and EU law, essential amendments should be made to the current draft. At a minimum, the Government should restore the ordinary planning framework as the presumptive consent route. The Bill must also require a project-specific climate-compatibility assessment that explicitly evaluates consistency with the 1.5-degree temperature limit under the Paris Agreement and Ireland’s remaining carbon budget.
To prevent permanent lock-in and unending fossil fuel dependency, the legislation must include legally binding sunset clauses and decommissioning requirements.
We do not have to choose between keeping the lights on and protecting the planet. But we must choose between a transparent, lawful energy transition and a rushed, State-led gamble that undermines the climate foundations we have spent a decade building.
