Mr. Jerry Hallissey:

That report on offshore wind is on our website but we will certainly release a copy of it to the committee after the meeting. Regarding fixed wind farms, the water depths off the west coast are not conducive to fixed base offshore. We have much deeper waters, which are more conducive to floating technology. As a result, it is the shallower waters on the east coast and the south-east coast that are primarily being targeted for fixed base.

The education cluster was set up. Engagement with industry and all stakeholders is part of what I do. It is an overall conversation about what needs to be done to bring forward and bring our ambitions to fruition. Part of the early engagement with manufacturers and developers was about the talent pool and where it was going to come from. We have not got a history of this in Ireland so it was very important, a year and a half ago at this stage, that we set up the education cluster primarily focused on the University of Limerick but with connectivity into Munster Technological University, the Technological University of the Shannon and the National Maritime College of Ireland. It was all about trying to put the requirements in place, including that connectivity to industry and other education institutions abroad that would be able to help us deliver the courses that will be required in future for today's school-leavers to have an ambition when it comes to offshore wind.

I spoke yesterday with Irish people abroad. When they wanted to get into offshore energy, they had to go away and never had an opportunity to come home. They went off, be it to Norway, Australia or wherever, did their coursework, got their jobs abroad and that was the end of it. We are putting together the requirements for each career profile through the curriculum working group we have put in place. That in turn will assign the opportunity. It might be a case of, let us say, an electrical engineer doing a number of semesters in Ireland who can then travel abroad to finish off the piece that would be required for offshore installation. Those young people who do those courses and do that travelling - we all wanted to do a little travelling in our time - have the opportunity, for the first time ever for that generation, to come back and have their job at home in the industry that will be evolving here. The curriculum working group is working well in defining those career paths and what is required.

The research and development working groups are working closely with industry to see what it will require as it moves forward. The perfect example of that is only last week I was at the University of Limerick, which is printing wind turbine blades and has a curing process. It will take a while to scale up to the size that will be required in the Atlantic, but that is what is happening at this stage. It is that connectivity with industry that will be required into the future.