Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I might get to ask Mr. Keating one more question in my remaining time. I hope to come in again in a while, so I will have questions for other witnesses. I am more au fait, as spokesperson on aviation, with things that take to the sky. Our airport managers have a European-wide network which they feed into and discuss policy with, etc. Is there something similar for ports? Some months ago, a very senior diplomat from another EU country was here. He said, in private session, that if Irish ports are not configured and ready to take offshore wind to bring turbines on-site, anchor them, construct them and all the initial stuff, the ports of Hamburg, Bremen and Rotterdam already have orders in place for other countries. They can fulfil those orders and could wipe the eye of Ireland. Essentially, this diplomat said there are all of the environmental reasons we should do that, and there are a hundred of them. We will not list them off because I think everyone accepts that we need to do this. The next thing is this is lucrative for Ireland. We have such a wind vane coming in from the wild Atlantic, this will be majorly lucrative. The third thing, which I think the witnesses understand better than the public, is that the first phase of construction, development and getting everything on site is also lucrative. Why allow that opportunity to pass Ireland Inc. by and allow another nation or another port like Bremen or Hamburg come over and fulfil it? Is there a network of European ports? Will the witnesses give an indication, comparable to Shannon Foynes, Cork or Dublin, of where other European ports are in being able to fulfil this initial stage of wind development?