Mr. Eddie Burke:

To be clear, when we talked about the different designations for the ports and airports, that is from TEN-T policy. It is not linked to these policies; it is just that those tend to be the biggest ports and airports and, for the purpose of these regulations, they have been tapped into.

As for the issue of competitiveness, the proposal is built on the fact that we take the heavy lifters, we use those and we roll out the policy through the people who have the capacity to do it. Taking the maritime one I mentioned, by targeting ships above 5,000 tonnes, 90% of the emissions are targeted. It would be similar, I would guess, on the aviation side. You are therefore targeting the larger ships and not hitting the smaller ports and building the heavy lifting at the larger end of the scale, which is a reasonable way to do it.

Again, the issue of fuels and alternative fuels is not a policy matter for this Department primarily. From the point of view of transport, we in Ireland tend to be fuel takers, that is, most of the fuel we get is imported and, as Ms O'Brien mentioned, for the likes of aviation and maritime, it will be blended at that stage, so the blending does not tend to happen here. It is a matter of finding those existing fuel suppliers in Europe or wherever else and using the blend of fuels they have.

Obviously, I cannot speak to the specific example the Deputy gave from his own experience but that is not to say there are not opportunities there as the market develops for businesses to grow in Ireland.

On the issue of offshore wind, all I can say from a transport point of view is there is a lot of work going on. I do not know if the Deputy was there when I made the point earlier that there is a call out at the moment under the Connecting Europe Facility, CEF, which is funding, and will fund, the likes of alternative fuels infrastructure. It will fund facilities in ports for offshore wind. There have been a lot of expressions of interest, or a few, in relation to ports and the facilities that can be built out to facilitate the future development of offshore wind. One of the key things offshore wind needs is the ability to assemble the turbines that will be required. That normally means within ports. That work is going on and we are in constant communication with our colleagues at the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. We know the plans they have for rolling out the whole offshore wind energy piece and what is happening on that side.