Deputy Dick Spring gave me notice of his intention to raise on the Adjournment the subject matter of difficulties being experienced in the Munster area by freezing home heating oil. The matter is in order.
Adjournment Debate. - Freezing of Home Heating Oil.
I am grateful for the opportunity of raising this matter on the Adjournment. It is important that it is aired and that the Minister in question should be given an opportunity to respond. I sought leave this morning to bring this matter to the attention of the House because of the substantial number of complaints which I have received in the last two days, which indicated that there is a serious problem with certain grades of home heating oil. This has become apparent in the last two days since the cold weather has begun. In the last two nights home heating oil which was distributed throughout Munster has frozen, in many instances, at temperatures equivalent to -4º. The most serious element in the complaints that I have received lies in the fact that all the oil that is causing this problem is oil which is refined at Whitegate. The distributors with whom I have been in contact in Counties Cork and Kerry and also outside the Munster region, in Wexford, have confirmed that the difficulty has been experienced only with oil which has come from Whitegate as opposed to oil in use in these areas which has come from refineries in Britain in particular.
In the last 24 hours complaints have been received by some distributors from over 20 customers and I have concluded that there seems to be little doubt that there is a serious problem. This problem has to be addressed now because if we do not address it now and give some guidance to the distributors and the consumers then a far more severe problem will arise when the weather worsens and before the winter is over. It is unlikely that we have had the most severe blast of weather for the winter and it is reasonable to expect that the severe weather which we have experienced for the past two days will be surpassed long before January is over.
This is not the first time that this problem has occurred; it was highlighted some years ago. Since then new standards have been introduced to cover all home heating oil. In years gone by there were two grades of home heating oil, winter grade and summer grade. The essential difference between the two grades was that summer grade oil would freeze easily and winter grade oil would not freeze until a temperature of -10º was reached. I understand that all oil is now intended to be covered by the same standard as laid down by the IIRS and what is commonly known as IS251. This means that basically no home heating oil should freeze until a temperature of -10º or less is reached.
The reason this problem is confined to the Munster area in particular is that Whitegate oil, the product of the refinery at Whitegate, is distributed mainly in the Munster region for the obvious reason of minimising cost to the distributors. I am sure the House and the Minister are well aware of the fact that oil companies must get approximately 35 per cent of their requirement from Whitegate, as laid down by previous Governments. Since the oil is distributed by road transport it is obviously cost effective from the company's points of view to distribute it as closely as possible to the refinery.
There are some serious questions which I would like the Minister to respond to. Firstly, is the standard applying to all home heating oil adequate? Has there been some slippage in the monitoring of the standard? Would the Minister indicate to the House how frequent the monitoring is of the oil which is in supply at present? More to the point, is the standard being applied to oil from Whitegate, and if not, why not?
From the number of complaints that have been received in the past 48 hours it appears that, at least in this instance, substandard oil has been allowed to be shipped out of Whitegate for distribution in Munster. I describe it as substandard oil because it has not stayed in its liquid form at temperatures of -4º over the past two days. One distributor described the oil in a particular home heating installation as more like a jelly substance than oil. It was in such a state that it would not flow through the normal domestic heating system. The question is how has this oil gone into distribution and become available to the consumer? This matter is to be taken seriously by the Department and the Minister.
It also raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the system in Whitegate. I would like to think that, by raising and highlighting this matter at this early stage of winter, steps can be taken, firstly, to acknowledge that there is a problem and, secondly, to alleviate the problem and make sure that it does not happen again. In some instances today people such as district nurses were quite frantic in contacting oil distributors and agencies to ensure that people could get alternative heating or that some emergency supply could be made available because old people who are totally dependent on their domestic oil systems were in distress.
A serious question arises if oil from Whitegate is allowed to be of a lower standard than home heating oil that is imported directly into this country. As one who has defended Whitegate down through the years, all I can say is that this would not be in the interest of Whitegate and certainly not in the interest of the oil industry. It might be tempting to speculate that there are other interests who would feel very well served if Whitegate were to get a reputation for a substandard and shoddy product, but I do not believe that would be in the national interest. That is why I have taken steps to bring this to the attention of the Department at the earliest possible opportunity. I ask the Minister to give us an assurance, first, that this complaint will be investigated fully and that a response will be given in relation to the seriousness of the complaint and, secondly, that steps will be taken to ensure there are no more problems with home heating oil supplied from Whitegate stocks in the course of this winter.
At the outset let me assure the Deputy that I have taken careful note of the points he has raised and will ensure that they are taken into account in the context of consideration of the appropriate Irish specification for diesel oil.
My Department at present have not received any complaints concerning the freezing of home heating oil in the Munster area. I have ascertained, however, from the Department of Energy that a number of oil suppliers in the Munster area have received complaints which they are investigating at present.
In so far as the Irish National Petroleum Corporation refinery at Whitegate is concerned, the Deputy will be aware that Whitegate supplies 35 per cent of the motor spirit/gasoil requirements of the Irish market under the terms of the fuels order. The INPC supply home heating oil to winter-grade specifications all year round, that is oil which operates successfully down to a temperature of -12º Celcius. In this regard, I am informed by the Meteorological Office that temperature in the Munster area did not fall below -6º Celcius in the last few days. I hope Deputy Spring will take careful note of those points of information received from the Meteorological Office.
Certainly.
The Department of Energy have informed me that some suppliers supply two grades of oil during the year, a summer grade, which operates down to -4º Celsius and a winter grade which operates down to -12º Celsius. It is possible that the problems to which the Deputy is referring may have occurred and been caused in installations containing summer grade oil or a mixture of summer and winter grade oils. This oil waxing problem last occurred in January 1987, following which, with great alacrity, the Government asked the then IIRS to investigate and report on changes in the winter grade specification which might be needed to avoid the problem. As a result of that investigation, the standard was strengthened in November 1987 to specify a low temperature limit of -12º Celcius rather than -9º Celcius, which was introduced in 1981 and which continued to appertain while Deputy Spring was in Government and represented the Government as Tánaiste and as a very senior Minister in that Government.
It was hot in those days.
The Government are concerned to ensure that consumers are aware of the problems which can occur during spells of extremely cold weather. In line with this, on 17 November last that is Thursday of last week, just a few days ago, the Minister issued a press release warning of these dangers. In the press release, the Minister announced that he had directed the National Standards Authority of Ireland to organise a special consumer information campaign on winter grade diesel and heating oils. The aim of the campaign is to ensure that home owners, farmers, and transport fleet operators will know what precautions to take to protect their oil supplies, heating systems and diesel vehicles against freezing in very cold weather conditions.
The Minister has secured the co-operation of the oil companies to fund the campaign. They have agreed to distribute a leaflet, prepared by the NSAI in co-operation with the oil companies themselves, to every customer explaining the precautions to be taken. This is a unique achievement which, if Deputy Spring had had the initiative to take, he would have been proud of. The thrust of the leaflet is that if the consumer takes common-sense steps now to protect his tank and equipment, then in the conditions we normally get in this country when he presses the button the heating will come on or the tractor will start.
The Minister keeps under review, on an ongoing basis, the standard specifications which apply to oil supplied on the Irish market. In this regard, I would point out that the Irish standard applied to home heating oil, in relation to its cold weather properties, is exactly the same as the standard which applies in the United Kingdom, where much more severe weather conditions can occur, as, no doubt, Deputy Spring is aware as a result of his numerous visits to the UK when he was Tánaiste and Minister.
And on the building sites there.
While it would be possible to specify operating limits to extremely low temperatures, as is done in countries like Canada, this approach would be extremely costly and supplies of such oil would be quite difficult to obtain.
I understand that.
I thank Deputy Spring for his great understanding. The cost of setting Siberian or Yukon limits would be very high to provide oil with cold weather performance which is needed only for a few days, in pockets of the country which vary each year depending on weather patterns. Indeed, in most years the winter frosts in Ireland never reach a level that affects oil flow properties. It is clearly more cost effective to employ precautionary methods and measures in this limited number of affected areas and cases than to impose a cost penalty on the domestic and industrial sectors as a whole by requiring a winter grade standard which is more severe than that applying in the United Kingdom.
Therefore, I would strongly urge consumers to take precautions to avoid waxing problems or mixing. First, when they are buying their heating oil for use in the winter months, they should always specify and insist on getting winter grade oil. That is common sense. Second, they should obtain a copy of the information leaflet from their suppliers and follow the advice given. I hope we do not get the sort of weather that Deputy Spring is predicting. He is becoming a master artist in the prediction of doom and gloom. I hope he is not going into the weather forecasting business because if he does we are going to have a rather disastrous end of year and New Year. I hope his dreamy predictions for the future weather of Ireland will prove to be totally unfounded.
With your indulgence I would like to put one brief question to the Minister of State. His eloquent geographical gymnastic waxing has left me a little bewildered. I want to clarify that I understood the Minister responsible for Science and Technology correctly when he said that all of the oil supplied from Whitegate to the consumer is winter grade oil and that thus we can conclude that there should not be a problem at minus four degrees celsius with that oil product?
That is correct.
The Dáil adjourned at 11.55 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 24 November 1988.