Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am very conscious that I focused on offshore energy in my commentary. I was not sure whether it was a wider debate. I got an indication that it was primarily that. However, there were a number of questions about the onshore energy from Senator Kyne and others. Others asked about the wind guidelines and Derrybrien. We will have to do a lot of work on onshore as well. We are not finished there. There is huge potential benefit in developing that for local use of that energy as well as for meeting our climate targets.

I will go through a number of the questions that various Senators raised. I will start on this issue of An Bord Pleanála, which Senator McDowell raised, in terms of whether we should be looking for another vehicle. I would be reluctant to start recreating a new planning system or organisation within that. I take his point that An Bord Pleanála has a remarkable breadth of hugely important projects in front of it at the moment. I could go on. He mentioned ten-storey blocks, the metro, the DART+ - I am just thinking about my transport brief alone – BusConnects and Cork metropolitan rail. That is all before An Bord Pleanála as we speak, before we consider housing, energy, water, health and education and all the buildings. Our big project is in capital.

I believe the Government legislation due to go before the joint Oireachtas committee on the environment is critical in the revision, update or modernisation of the Planning and Development Act 2000 and will resolve many of the difficulties there. It does not fundamentally throw the baby out with the bath water. We are sticking with the same environmental rights and access to justice rights. However, we need to take this legislation. Part of the problem for An Bord Pleanála and others is that legislation has been amended so many times that it is often contradictory, as I am told by expert lawyers. It needs this consolidation, which I hope will help not only An Bord Pleanála, but developers and local communities engage in the planning system. That will require massive upscaling of An Bord Pleanála and indeed a number of further judicial appointments. It is not just An Bord Pleanála; my understanding is the court’s ability to progress these issues is among the constraints that we face. Included in that, the development under this Government of a new environment court, which can start straight away, is one of the examples of the resourcing we will have to provide. An Bord Pleanála had been provided those resources. They are employing marine experts. They are not easy to get and there is a limited resource. If a child is looking at the CAO application at the moment, I would recommend considering ecology and environmental studies. That is where all the employment is at the moment. You cannot get people with expertise in that area. We are scaling up An Bord Pleanála.

A number of Senators raised the issue of MARA. Just to reassure people, the agency is up and running and in effect. We have 20 people working there and a new CEO is being interviewed as we speak. A new chair was appointed last week by Government. MARA will hit the ground running; it has to. I believe it is the right institutional structure. In many ways, on the offshore wind side, MARA, in the consenting role it will have and the ability to provide much of the preplanning and environmental analysis and so on will help when it comes down to the final decision-making.

Senator McGahon asked if the Civil Service is slowing it down. The answers is "No". We had a meeting yesterday. Civil servants take part in the task force we have, which has been in place for a year, on offshore wind development. In delivering what we need to do in climate, we are focusing on the next three years. We have a task force on sustainable mobility and one on heat. However, the task force on offshore wind development was up and running first and is most active now. The laser focus is on delivery, particularly in the next three years. On the way that these task forces work, we learned from Covid and Brexit that you get away sometimes from that bureaucratic glue within our public service when you bring different Departments together with agencies and outside expertise, and engage in stakeholder engagement on an ongoing basis so it is transparent, public and it has tight timelines. We have project management teams in place with outside project management expertise, which see, in each of the areas of responsibility, Gantt charts that show in which month things need to be delivered. It is an incredibly tight timeline. We have no time to spare, as it were, because we are in a race. That is what is happening. The job of the political system – this House, the Dáil and also myself as Minister and my team – is to hold those teams of public servants to account to make sure we deliver. That is happening.

A number of Senators mentioned the issue of ports. They are correct that this is probably one of the tightest supply constraints. Many of our ports are involved in deploying wind turbines. The turbines that were in Connemara came in through Galway port. Our ports are skilled in importing and disturbing. Many of the first projects for our ports will be deployment assembly. As we move into the large offshore floating, I expect we will move into much more industrial manufacturing fabrication opportunities. That will take slightly longer. We have to get our ports ready for deployment in these phase 1 projects. Again, the key issue will be getting MARA to do some of the consenting on the foreshore licensing in a timely manner that allows the deployment to happen.

Senator Byrne asked about vessels. There are constraints in every sector. There are constraints in cabling, foundation making, turbine manufacture and shipping, as well as in ports in terms of capacity across north-west Europe and indeed elsewhere abroad. Many of the companies are global and therefore, they are providing for one market or another. That is why we have to be quick. We have the right system in place. On our offshore renewable energy support scheme 1, ORESS 1, structure, I heard from the industry that we got it right and put the right provisions in place to allow us to compete with other international locations. The more certainty we have around this politically and in the planning system, the better able we will be to attract those resources.

Senator Chambers is concerned about the west not being in our thoughts and far from them. That first place one would like to see us develop because that is where the strongest resource is. Indeed, in the phase 1 projects we have a project on the Sceirde Rocks in the west. I mentioned the new chair of MARA. He is as proud a Mayo man as you could get. It is not as if the system will not be looking to develop in the west. Senator Dolan asked where we are on the SPAs and SACs. That is a critical issue for us. I am reassured by the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, that we will have all the necessary planning information on the designation of those areas in place for the phase 1 projects to assist the planning system in developing the projects. Much more work needs to be done, especially in the south and west, on baseline data about cetaceans, birds and others. That work must be done in the time covered by the Gantt chart which sets out what needs to be in place for us to develop. That is the key constraint. People in Mayo are concerned about getting the investment. The underlying analysis of the environmental data and the sharing of the data will be the most important issues. I will leave it on that "The West's Awake" note.