Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair for the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I apologise to Mr. Shaw and Mr. Finucane who have heard this rant before.

I will specifically focus on the issue of offshore renewable energy and the potential off our coast. Ireland has about 900,000 km2 of territorial waters, ten times the size of the island of Ireland. In that territory, we have some of the best offshore renewable energy resources in the world. The current Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment has set a target of achieving 70% renewable electricity on our grid by 2030 which is a phenomenal ask. The practical reality of that is that we have two options. We either double the size of every single wind turbine in the country and double the number of wind farms on the island which covers about 0.3% of the total territory of Ireland and shoehorn massive wind farms and turbines into a very small area, particularly across the middle of the country, or we fully exploit the renewable energy we have off our coast.

I ask Ms Graham where we are on putting a planning structure in place. She says that she expects to have the legislation published by the end of the year. Is that the maritime area and foreshore amendment Bill? How confident is Ms Graham that we will have that? The difficulty is that we have heard for the last five or six years that this was imminent, it would happen shortly, publication was moving along, yet here we are. We are still waiting for a consent process to be put in place. Until we have a consent process, it will be very hard to exploit the potential.

For context, the potential of renewable energy off our coast, according to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland is 50GW. That is enough to supply France and Austria combined, let alone this small island. There are great opportunities to reduce our carbon impact dramatically while also significantly reducing the cost of electricity to Irish consumers. Unlike land-based wind turbines, the Irish taxpayers fully own the resource off our coast. By optioning that we have the opportunity to fully exploit it in the interest of the country as a whole. Does it not make more sense to establish an offshore renewable development authority which would drive this whole area in a fully co-ordinated national plan that would range in responsibility from research and development through to supply chain development and the commercial deployment of floating wind turbines off the coast? That would have an impact on climate and the environment but would also put infrastructure in place and ensure that Ireland becomes the focal point for innovation and job creation in this sector, rather than importing constructed wind turbines from another part of Europe. We have a golden opportunity to exploit that now. We have some very fine ports. My colleague, Deputy Harty, will discuss the opportunity in the Shannon estuary. Unless we are prepared to fully exploit it, I am concerned that all we are doing is putting in place a planning authorisation mechanism which will facilitate international companies coming here and offshoring profits that should be held by the Irish taxpayer. That is a big concern which many communities in my part of the country have about wind farms, leaving aside their appearance and the noise factor. It is a fact that the profits are leaving the country and are not remaining in the communities.

In her presentation, Ms Graham said the planning consent process will move the decision making to local authorities and An Bord Pleanála. I have great concerns about that. Are we asking, say, Leitrim County Council to take responsibility for the offshore renewable resources it will have planning authorisation for while Donegal will have a significant amount, as will Mayo, Sligo and down along the coast? One cannot have an inconsistency from Cork County Council to Leitrim County Council in terms of fully exploiting this. There must be a standard position across the country. It cannot be down to the particular view taken by a planner in Mayo County Council compared to one in Clare County Council. That cannot be allowed to happen if we are going to fully exploit this. A single authority must make the approval on this, whether it is An Bord Pleanála or some other body, not the individual local authorities. We have already seen the difficulties in consistency across the country and we cannot have that in our offshore process. I ask Ms Graham to comment on that.

My next question is for Mr. Finucane. Where is the Atlantic marine energy test site off the Mayo coast at currently? There were plans to look at installing floating wind turbines at that test site. Has any progress been made? To my knowledge, the only commercial deployment of floating wind turbines to date has been in Highwind in Scotland. We have great opportunity here. There have been some preliminary discussions about deployment off the west coast but are there any plans for this at the test site in Belmullet to see what opportunity we have with this?

Are there any plans to deploy them off the west coast at that test site in Belmullet to see what opportunity we have there?

On climate action, there are some things we can do well and there are others we will struggle with. We are a small island off the coast of Europe. Transport will be challenging and we are technology takers in that area. Agriculture is another area. The green agenda is trying to sacrifice the most carbon-efficient exporting country in Europe for beef, because beef farming makes up a big proportion of our overall emissions in Ireland. We are probably one of the most carbon-efficient beef exporters in the world, and yet we are trying to sacrifice that industry, where we can offset a lot of our emissions with renewable energy. We could supply that renewable energy to meet the targets and needs of Ireland as well as supplying a substantial amount of that energy into the European Union to reduce the overall carbon footprint right across Europe. The potential is there but we must get the planning process in place quickly. It has taken us six to seven years to get this far. We need to see movements in months and weeks rather than in another six or seven years because the horse will have bolted at that stage.