Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome and thank the Minister for his presentation. For far too long the debate around climate change has been one that has been couched in negative language; it is around what we must stop doing, what we cannot do anymore and the burden of change that is put on us. I like to look at it a bit differently, insofar as one can, in recognising the opportunities that exist from climate change. The Chairperson identified opportunities around regional development and balancing that development. Opportunities that exist now could not have been imagined. I speak of the potential for the generation of electricity from offshore wind; these projects are known as floating offshore wind.

There is a transformative array of projects for the capture of electricity off the Atlantic coast, off the west of Ireland, the mid west specifically. The Chairperson and I have talked about this on many occasions. It does require a leap of faith by the Government as some, or most, of the technologies are still in development. However, other countries are advancing, namely, Norway, Portugal, Scotland and a number of others. There is a real need for the Government to show, as it has in so many other areas, real ambition around being part of that development phase.

The economic document that was prepared on the Shannon Estuary, put together by the Shannon Estuary Economic Taskforce led by Barry O'Sullivan, makes a clear call that we must move quickly to designate marine protected areas quicker. While the Government does plan to do that, there is a shortage of resources, human resources more so than money. I believe we need to tool up that area.

We also need to put money in place to establish a demonstrator project that will be part of a pilot programme, so that we are kept abreast and at pace of the development of the technology, so that we are technology developers in this area rather than effectively taking the end product when it is developed elsewhere.

When these new technologies are at commercial scale, they have the capacity if done right to put Ireland as one of the leaders of the world in this regard. I encourage the Minister to look at the funding request and to put that demonstrator or pilot project in place. Most likely, floating offshore wind will not come ashore until approximately 2031 or 2032 but it will be too late for job creation and future investment in that region if we wait until everybody else has developed the technology. I am anxious to hear the Minister's thoughts in this regard.