Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)

I am pleased the Minister of State is here, hopefully with delegated authority, regardless of whether it relates to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

Today, the joint committee spoke to representatives from Wind Energy Ireland. It was an education for us. I was astounded to learn that there will be no wind energy generated at sea. When I was in the Minister of State’s position many years ago, I was involved when Arklow got approval, but now the Arklow site is being decommissioned. There are no sites on the west coast, where the wind speeds are the highest in Europe. I do not believe we have the infrastructure required to establish wind energy generation off the west coast. It is not something that can be achieved overnight but we should be examining it. I hope Killybegs will be considered. Killybegs is being used to bring in the turbines but I am referring to something much greater than that.

When I came in today, before I looked at the documentation, I took it that we would be dealing only with the Department of the marine, but I see that we are not and are instead dealing also with the Department for Climate, Energy and the Environment. If we were to home in on what we are doing, we would see we are dealing just with marine spatial planning and MARA. Maybe we could have an explanation as to what this is all about. Might the Minister of State be coming in again with his Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine hat on to deal with this? Can we expect that there will be Revised Estimates for the core Department, that is, the Department responsible for the marine?