Mr. Justin Moran:

For our perspective, we need to do both. If we are to hit the carbon emissions targets that have been set for us and that are legally binding, we need to double our onshore wind capacity - that is approximately another 4,000 MW of onshore wind - and we need 7,000 MW of offshore wind. It works out at between seven to ten offshore wind farms.

One of the big challenges we have with offshore, although the turbines at sea are able to generate more efficiently, is that they are more expensive to build. One of the real challenges we have is we do not yet have the planning system in place for us to enable application for those offshore wind farms. Some who received MACs before Christmas have still to have the opportunity to engage in preplanning consultation with An Bord Pleanála. Hopefully, they will get to submit their planning application later this year but we are still looking at the best case scenario being the first new operational offshore connecting at some point in 2028. We still need to deliver onshore, not only up to 2028 but beyond.