Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests and thank them for the briefings we received in advance of the meeting. It is important to say, on behalf of the Government, that this is a key commitment in the programme for Government and how we tackle climate action. Much human activity has an impact on our environment and there is a balance of compromises in many ways. If we are to continue our current level of human activity on the planet, we will have to look for ways for it to be sustainable. Offshore renewable energy is one of the key ways we can do this. Inevitably, there will be compromise but any such compromise would be far better than many of the fossil-led ways in which we have provided energy to our society.

This legislation will also provide major opportunity for Ireland. The operations in the UK have approximately 15% or 16% of all ORE activity on the planet, so we can see the potential for a small island nation like Ireland to be able to tap into a renewable resource. Not only do I welcome it, I encourage the Departments to do everything in their power to ensure the programme for Government commitment to legislate for this within the first year is realised. We must do our bit as well.

There are areas of some concern. How will the projects picked for the transitional period be dealt with? The second question relates to community benefit. It is a concept that is well understood by many public representatives and often there is an immediate impact. For an offshore project like this, it is harder to define what is a community. Does a visual detraction necessarily mean there must be a community benefit for the area? Should it be a community benefit for the State in how it uses energy? There are no hard and fast guidelines but I know in Scotland there is a figure of 20% that is used.

My last question relates to the 18-week period. Is there some discussion that this could perhaps be pushed to 26 weeks or is the Department opposed to that?