Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I was thinking earlier on that we have to deliver a lot by 2025. It is similar in offshore technology in the sense that the first auctions for phase 1 projects are already up and running. We will have to conclude those and then projects will go into planning this year. The next phase will be further projects on the east and south-east coast, where areas are approved in the process, but that auction will be next year and we need it to go into the planning system then in a similar way to phase 1. During the subsequent year we will have to do the auction for what is likely to go towards the enduring regime Vote. We will not set out the areas here now but it will be to the west and south and as part of the massive scaling-up project. That is the timeline and it works because we also need other Departments to feed in. We need the environmental designation of the special areas of conservation, SACs, and special protection areas, SPAs. We need work on the marine protected areas, in the designation of those areas and in the de-map of those areas, and data are also needed.

The signal is clear and real that we will go for this at scale, particularly with floating generation, because it is where the real resource is, especially for the export capability. No one is looking to delay this. We need to get it right in the next two years, or three years at a maximum, with an entire, enduring regime set up and starting to be delivered. The time on that will be well spent.

I keep coming back to the shortage of mariners.