Cork Says No to fracked LNG terminal in the Harbour

Members of Cork City Council last night voted overwhelmingly in favour of a motion proposed by Green Party Councillors to write to the Port of Cork, as well as the Minister for Communications, Climate Change & the Environment Richard Bruton, to formally request that they cease any work to “develop facilities in Cork Harbour to enable the importation of Liquefied Natural Gas extracted using hydraulic fracturing” in Cork Harbour.

Speaking after the passing of the motion, Green Party candidate in the Cork North Central by-election Councillor Oliver Moran said that the terminal in Cork would be a test of the Government’s credibility in meeting the challenges of the global climate and biodiversity crisis: “The Port of Cork is a state company with just two shareholders, the Minister for Transport and the Minister for Finance. We have challenges ahead in meeting our energy needs and doing so cleanly. But this vote by Cork City Council shows that no-one, regardless of political party or affiliation, wants Cork to be tainted by fracking. I want those two shareholders to now make clear that they don’t want the Port of Cork associated with it either.

“Fracking was banned here in 2017,” the Green Party Councillor continued. “It pollutes the groundwater, it harms people’s health, it endangers geology and the atmosphere. It’s the floor below which we cannot stoop. Making the transition to a low-carbon economy may be difficult, it may involve making hard decisions like this. I’m enormously grateful to my colleagues on Cork City Council last night for sending this clear message. This city will not be complicit in the off-shoring of suffering involved in making that transition.”

Activists from Rio Grande Valley, Texas wrote to the Green Party in Cork to talk about the effects of fracking on people living there: “Fracking, whereby water, sand, and toxic chemicals are injected several kilometers into the earth to extract fossil gas, has been banned in Ireland for good reason. The practice has been linked to earthquakes, groundwater contamination, and negative health effects.

“Few countries have been foresighted enough to enact a ban, so it’s especially unfortunate that this achievement is sullied by Ireland’s continued development of fossil gas import projects that shift the risks of fracking onto others. The Inisfree floating storage and regasification unit project at the Port of Cork, for example, will bring fracked gas from an LNG facility planned for our part of South Texas. Climate concerns, coupled with an ethical imperative to limit the effects of fracking abroad, suggest that it’s time for the Port of Cork to drop its Inisfree FSRU plans. We support our Irish allies’ efforts to halt this and other fossil gas infrastructure.”

The motion, proposed by Green Party Councillors Moran, Bogue, Boyle and Finn, was passed with only one objection. Cork City Council will now write to the Port of Cork and Minister Bruton to end all memorandums of understanding to jointly develop LNG facilities in Cork Harbour.