Mr. Pat Keating:

The harbour for the Shannon Foynes Port Company is the entire lower Shannon Estuary. Our harbour bounds Clare, Kerry and Limerick county councils. We were a major contributor to the integrated framework plan, and the new sites or strategic development locations, SDLs, that have been zoned were done with our involvement. We look at the estuary in its entirety. We do not look at it on a county-by-county basis because the port authority encompasses the Shannon Estuary. There are huge advantages for the site in Moneypoint and the deepwater port there. It is the only port in the country that can take in capesize vessels, which are 300 m long. The energy White Paper for 2025 is fast approaching. The jetty is owned by the ESB and we talk to it regularly. From those discussions, there is a consensus that floating offshore renewables will be a prime target for that jetty.

One other huge advantage the Shannon Estuary has with regard to attracting floating offshore energy is that there is already 1.6 GW of fossil fuel power generation on the estuary between the ESB and SSE. Those two utilities are very significant players in their own right and it is common knowledge that the ESB and Equinor are in a tie-up as well. What we have at the moment is 1.6 GW, which can act as a catalyst for offshore renewable energy, ORE. That grid connection is potentially there.