Mr. Noel Cunniffe:

The Deputy's first question was about whether there has been an assessment of State resources. There has not been such an assessment, to our knowledge, but we would strongly recommend that one be carried out. I have a comment on the previous question, which is relevant, about the resources of Eirgrid and ESB Networks. Ireland currently has less than 5 GW of renewable capacity in its electricity grid. Over the next eight years, we will try to build and connect 12 GW of renewable capacity. All the while, we are also trying to enable the electrification of transport, through 500,000 electric vehicles, and to have 600,000 heat pumps in homes. This drain on resources will be significant compared with what is currently in place if we are to deliver that. We need more people in ESB Networks and Eirgrid to deliver that. Their budgets are covered through the price review process with energy regulators. They have been given a budget, which runs to 2025, to deliver on this. The staffing levels of the regulator have not yet been decided. Correct staffing levels are needed if the regulator is to duly assess the changes and policies we need to deliver our targets. As I mentioned, that is also an issue for An Bord Pleanála.

There are great examples of offshore wind from the British and Polish systems. They have introduced a sector deal, where industries sit at the table with the right departments and enterprise agencies to try to deliver this. There are regular stakeholder meetings where everybody is briefed on the plan. We have called for that for some time now. I mentioned in my opening statement that we would also like to see the same type of committee formed specifically for the offshore grid. The critical path now is to understand the technical challenges of connecting these projects to the system. Getting that up and running as soon as possible would be welcome.

Regarding the future of onshore wind energy, we need to keep delivering it. There is no question about that. Right now, with the best will in the world, we will not have offshore wind connected to our grid and exporting until 2027 or 2028. Between now and then, we need onshore renewable energy to continue to develop and progress, including onshore wind and solar energy. We have a pipeline of onshore wind in development with approximately 10 GW of capacity.

We need that pipeline coming along because there will be attrition at the planning system, which we have talked about this morning, and there needs to be attrition at the renewable auction level as well. Some projects will be successful but some will not be. There is a very strong future for onshore wind, and that will be very important, in particular in hitting our carbon budget targets over the next six years or so.

One of Deputy O'Rourke's questions was whether we will miss our target if we do not get this right. We will, definitely. Right now we probably have, at best, a 50-50 chance of hitting our target of 5,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030. For all the reasons we have discussed, we need more resourcing in the right areas to be able to deliver on that.

Finally, in response to the question of what is the upper limit, our vision is that, as a country, we should have a goal of having a zero-carbon electricity sector by 2035. Just yesterday Germany announced that goal. We have seen the UK and other countries announce it too. Last year we produced a report called Endgame, which was shared with the members of the committee, showing that this is technically and economically feasible in the early 2030s.