The government has been accused of hypocrisy by allowing liquified gas which was created through fracking to be imported at Cork harbour.
A liquefied natural gas tanker is to be moored permanently at the harbour, which is close to the Whitegate and Aghada gas-powered electricity stations. The tanker will be used to store gas imported by sea from fracking operations in the United States despite the government passing a bill in June to ban the process in Ireland.
Fracking uses high-pressure water and chemicals to extract raw fuels from rocks, sand and coal seams. It was banned after concerns it would threaten the country’s air and water quality.
Oliver Moran, the Green Party representative for Cork North-Central, said the gas was from the Rio Grande, one of the main rivers in the southwest of the US and northern Mexico.
He said: “It’s typical of our attitude to environmental issues that one month we are slapping ourselves on the back for banning onshore fracking and then the next we’re planning on importing onshore fracked gas from Texas.
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“The plans for Cork harbour expose the government’s hypocrisy on environmental issues.”
A spokesman for Denis Naughten, the environment minister, said that the government had last year expressed support for the construction of a liquified natural gas terminal.
He said that the project was commercial and as minister Mr Naughten did not have any “direct involvement with its development”. He added: “The regulation of the gas market is the responsibility of the energy regulator.”
Tony McLoughlin, Fine Gael TD for Sligo-Leitrim, submitted a private members’ bill to end fracking, which was passed last month. Mr McLoughlin said: “This law will mean communities in the west and northwest of Ireland will be safeguarded from the negative effects of hydraulic fracking.”
Attempts to end offshore fracking have been unsuccessful. Sinn Féin said that it was withdrawing an amendment to ban fracking because it did not want to delay a ban on fracking on land. Energy companies have explored for large shale and other tight sandstone deposits in Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Donegal and Clare. Three exploratory licences were granted in 2011 for fracking but no extraction has taken place.