Mr. David Maguire:

On the cost specifically, it is difficult for me to give the Senator a figure but as an industry we are not seeking a generous feed-in tariff. Those days are gone. We are seeking a stable support mechanism that is an auction for the electorate so industry will drive down the prices. Everybody in the renewable energy sector will agree the feed stock is free. Once one is up and running, that cost will decrease. For solar energy, it could be anything on the range from 6 cents to 9 cents for a kW hour. Ireland is paying a higher LCOE for wind and solar energy and other technologies than the consumer needs to. We are higher than the rest of our fellow EU member states because of our connection costs and our planning costs. That cost is passed on.

On expansion, this is a global business. We are active building projects in multiple jurisdictions across the globe. We have projects under construction in the US, Australia and Europe. Many of the industries one sees in Ireland that are talking about offshore wind energy, onshore wind energy and solar energy are global businesses. Some of them are Irish. Ours is an Irish-owned business and it is operated and headquartered here but we have operations globally. This is not about Ireland and if it was, we would be out of business because we started developing here at the start of 2016 at the same time we entered the US market. We have since got about 130 MW of projects under construction in the US with lots more to come. Those skill sets go overseas all the time.