The head of an Irish oil and gas exploration firm has said there "is no crisis at the moment", but could be in 100 years.

David Horgan, Managing Director of Petrel Resources, got into a heated debate with People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy.

Deputy Murphy told The Hard Shoulder energy companies should be nationalised.

"People are really suffering with the cost of living crisis at the moment," he said.

"People have seen their energy bills increase by an average of over €1,000 in the course of last year.

"One-in-three people are now experiencing energy poverty.

"The driving factor of that is profiteering by these companies.

"These companies increased their profits globally; they doubled them last year compared to the year before.

"By nationalising them, you take that out of the equation [and] you run them in the interests of people.

"The second, and more important reason really, is that these are the companies more than anybody else who are responsible for the climate catastrophe that we're heading towards.

"They're doing all of this for profit, it's in their interests for oil and gas to continue to be burned because that's all profit for them".

'State-socialism never works'

Mr Horgan said there is no climate crisis, yet.

"Paul is the equivalent of our own Liz Truss or Kwasi Kwarteng: putting forward their own ideology in complete defiance of the facts.

"We have 100 years experience of what happens when you nationalise energy companies, and it is always a disaster and it is always counterproductive.

"Politicians never understand finance... the euro is an orphan, it doesn't have to come to Ireland - it can go to any one of another 200 countries where it's made welcome.

"If you increase the uncertainty over investment, the risk-adjusted rate of return goes up - secondly, people don't make investment.

"The result is shortages that we found last year and higher prices to consumers.

"The consumers always get screwed; State-socialism never works, it's always a disaster and your listeners will pay".

David Horgan, Managing Director of Petrel Resources, gestures during a debate in Newstalk studios. Picture by: Newstalk

Put to him that he is denying there is a climate crisis, Mr Horgan said: "Humanity needs economic growth - there is a crisis, there's a crisis of poverty.

"The average temperatures measured over 170 years is up 1.2° Celsius.

"There have been periods where it's leapt 5/7° Celsius and fallen.

"There is no crisis at the moment. Is there a risk of a problem in 100 years? Yeah."

Mr Horgan said this is a long time to come up with adaptations.

"When I was small, I remember my grandparents talking about the Spanish Flu.

"Every now and again you heard a whisper about what their grandparents had said in the aftermath of the Famine.

"That was a crisis, what we're living through is not a crisis.

"The richer we get, and the better we invest our money, the more able we are to deal with future challenges," he added.