Mr. Pat Keating:

In regard to the competition, currently our main competition is international rather than domestic. For this floating offshore resource, the main competitor is currently the UK, which has two options for floating offshore up and running, namely, ScotWind and another off north Wales. The risk of those, with Ireland behind the curve by at least five or six years, is that supply chain investment will decide to locate to Scotland before Ireland. Given the scale of the investment required, even in respect of the supply chain, with fabrication yards and so on, it is probably a once-in-25-years investment decision. If we lose it, therefore, the risk to Ireland, notwithstanding the remarks we made earlier about transport, is that the supply chain will locate outside of Ireland and we will end up with a commodity resource rather than a value-added resource. We can learn a great deal from how the UK has approached this and what it has done through its crown estate and so forth.

As for who will pay for all this, I am not a pricing expert by any means but the crown estate's approach has been to ask how the supply chain and the wind developers propose to build out their supply chain as part of their option process. Much can be gleaned from how the auction is set up and we can determine where the supply chain will, potentially, be located. As I said following the Minister's statement before Christmas, we should seek engagement with Europe to extend the Connecting Europe facility to include the funding of port infrastructure, which is 50% for studies or preliminary works and 30% for capital expenditure work. On the capital expenditure side, there has already been some sharing of the investment cost. There is no facility in Ireland for ports to apply to for such funding. It is through the pricing auction mechanisms that the costings can be shared.

In light of the level of bids for open auctions in the UK, and ScotWind in particular, the private sector is queuing up to fund this. The most recent auction comprised 74 applicants and there were 16 successful applicants, so it was totally oversubscribed. This is a queue of private sector money and there is a transition out of oil and gas among major companies into this space. The costs will, ultimately, be taken up by the sector but it is a question of timing. If we have to deliver large port capital expenditure in particular, we need it upfront. There is a timing issue there and the sector will pay for that capital expenditure as it consumes it over the long term. That is the funding gap we have to resolve for the ports. It is definitely doable, but it will need a bit of thought.