Mr. Terence O'Rourke:

I thank Senator Dooley for his points on consultation and community engagement, and on the offshore versus onshore. I take the Senator's point that it is difficult to do community engagement at the moment. I am aware that the community engagement is an important part of any process of large infrastructure projects to make sure that people have an opportunity to express their concerns, and for making sure we can deal with any concerns as best we can. We will be working with Coillte and I will make sure to bring that issue back to management to make sure we take on board that the community is not happy with the level of consultation available at the moment, and to see what further we can do. I understand the importance of that.

A couple of years ago, I led a group in the business community looking at the best way to do community engagement. We had representatives from the ESB, EirGrid, Bord Gáis and others working out the best way to do that. I believe it is an important issue and I fully understand the point.

In terms of old versus new technology, offshore wind is technically challenging. Obviously, the best way will be floating platforms, which is completely new technology. The ESB is engaged. Before Christmas, the board approved the purchase of 50% of a wind farm off the coast of Arklow. We are also engaged in a wind farm off the coast of County Louth and have investments off the coast of Scotland. Neart na Gaoithe is a big wind farm in which we are in joint venture. The great opportunity to learn the technology is the very point made by the Senator. We are therefore absolutely committed to finding out and understanding how wind farms work.

What is needed to really advance this in Ireland is some technology proving, which is what we are doing and learning from other people, but also the legislative framework. There are a whole lot of issues about the seabed and how floating platforms work and all the rest. The legislative framework to really expand offshore wind is needed now. Advances need to be made in the connection of the grid to bring electricity from offshore back onto the ground and make sure it can be connected and transmitted through the transmission network. Therefore, a number of technical issues are to be addressed but they are all on the ESB's agenda. We will work as fast as we can to do that.

I thank the Deputy for his comment about how the ESB seemed to be ahead of its time in the past and now it does not appear to be. We are doing a lot of work the Deputy is probably not aware of. Our engineers, however, are working on some of the best projects in the world in offshore energy at the moment. We know that is part of the answer for Ireland because we are rich in offshore wind and it is something we can actually export in the future. In ten, 20 or 30 years' time, we could be a great exporter of energy and electricity from Ireland by using our offshore wind. The ESB is fully committed to being part of that for the benefit of the taxpayers of Ireland.