Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

To expand on what Mr. Carr said, there is a future for those hubs and for smaller freight delivery probably by electrified haulage with smaller trucks and shorter journeys. We have battery-powered electric trains on the way that can do an 80 km round trip and battery-run smaller haulage can be certainly done as well.

I wish to clarify something with Mr. O’Connell. I had a look at the European Environmental Agency, EEA, report on the comparison between HGVs and rail in CO2 per km. HGVs emit about 137g whereas rail comes out at 24g, despite what he said about the change and chopping and moving the freight, I do not see that it would be 5.7 times higher in any scenario at all. I wanted to clarify that. The EEA report is available.

On policy issues relating to offshore energy, we have a fantastic opportunity here in Ireland. We have the best wind speeds in Europe. We have to be careful that the negative talk does not talk us out of that investment as well. Industry, as industry always does, will say things are not quick enough and that they are not happy. It will always demand that because it has money to be made out of it and it has investors to keep happy. However, let us consider where we have gone in the past three years: three years ago, before the Government came into office, there was a target of 3 GW for offshore and it is now 7 GW. We have more than doubled the target. In that time we have passed legislation where the Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2021 has set the line around our country and we have seven times the sea area that our landmass is and the national marine planning framework, the overarching planning strategic policy document that shows how we are going to do everything in the marine sector. The Maritime Area Planning Act was the biggest request of the wind sector, the ORE sector and others in the maritime space which wanted us to develop a fit-for-purpose maritime planning Act. The Foreshore Act is nearly 100 years old. I was 1933, I think. It is not fit for purpose and a nightmare for anybody, from local authorities, ports or anyone who wants to do anything; they did not want to go near the Foreshore Act at all. Now we have it set out. We have the offshore renewable development plan, phases 2 and 3. It is plan-led, as it should be. Industry always wants to see that. It wants to see a strategic pathway set out, notwithstanding the points that were made here about the designated maritime area plans, DMAPs, and it will take a bit of time because we did not act fast enough on offshore. Twenty years ago we put turbines off the coast of Arklow and then we stopped and we focused inshore and we focused on gas and oil. Things have changed considerably in terms of climate and we know we have the best offering out there. It is better than anybody, including the Danes or the Austrians, and we are going to do it and it is happening at the moment. I take the point that people are concerned it did not happen or it might not be happening fast enough.

On floating versus fixed-bottom, the Western Economic Association International, WEAI, last year said it was concentrating on what is deliverable in fixed-bottom. There is wind floating technology off Scotland. I cannot remember the name of the one that was mentioned earlier. I wonder about transferring that to south west Ireland where there are much higher wind speeds and how deliverable it is, but it will happen. We have set a target of 30 GW for that and it could be 70 GW. I am happy that we have put a lot of things in place. We should do more on it but we need to be careful not to talk us out to talk us out of this space because it is global investment. The last thing it needs is for Ireland to be negative about it. With operators it is fine because they want more but we have to do what is best for Ireland and best for our people.

On the Marino Point development in Cork, it used to be the old IFI route from Shelton down to Cork. What freight options is the port would be considering there? What can Marino Point offer?