Ms Marie Donnelly:

In respect of investment, the North-South interconnector is one of the areas we have identified as a priority in upgrading our grid. While the North-South interconnector is one such priority, it is not the only one. There are 43 priority projects for upgrading the grid. They need to be done as soon as possible, yesterday if possible.

The Deputy mentioned the end of life of solar energy. There are two aspects in this regard. As the Deputy will know, planning provisions for some wind farms in Ireland have a duration of 15 years, which are now coming to an end. In some instances, it means wind farms will have to be dismantled. We do not have a 15-year planning period for other power generation sources. The council has identified this issue. There are 258 turbines at risk of decommissioning in the next five years because of the planning duration shortage. We have pointed this out to the Government and said that wind farms are being decommissioned because back then we said it would be a 15-year period but now we see it as a considerably longer period. That is an issue we need to address. It can be done by the Government. Solar and the recycling of solar panels, as well as wind blades, are issues currently being developed. We identified those in the chapter we did last year on the circular economy on waste.

Obviously, the council is clearly in support of green hydrogen. We have already recommended to the Government in its national ports policy to take up the issue of the size and investment of ports from two fronts. First, it will support offshore wind and ultimately hydrogen. Second, from the perspective of resilience, it will benefit us. We have seen this issue with Holyhead Port which was out of action for a number of weeks following a storm. Investment in our ports is a key issue. If we are going to invest in ports, as part and parcel of that, we will have to think about and plan in advance where we are going to put the electrolysis facilities and, from the electrolysis facilities, where and how we are going to store hydrogen. I am not an engineer but I understand that storing hydrogen is not exactly the same as storing natural gas. I am not sure whether they are interchangeable. I will have to check with some engineering colleague to ask about that. Certainly, it has to be part and parcel of the policy and the roll-out for the development of green hydrogen in the country.