Mr. Pat Keating:

Looking at the scale of the resource, at 80 GW, and considering the current grid size demand in Ireland is approximately 5.5 GW, that is less than 10%. What we have is a huge natural energy resource that is too big for local demand in the Irish market. It is therefore a pan-European play. The question we need to ask ourselves as a country is how we can bring that 80 GW into play and assist in decarbonising not only our own economy but also that of Europe, while also feeding into security of supply. We must start from that point and then look at whether our approach is conducive to unlocking the full 80 GW right now. The answer is it probably is not. We have geared the unlocking of our offshore resources based on looking at local Irish demand, while perhaps forgetting the elephant in the room of major European demand.

If we look at it from a pan-European perspective, it brings more urgency to unlocking the resource. Perhaps some of this has been lacking to date. We are looking to increase the pace of the processes that are being implemented. No one in the industry has any issue with the processes that are being adapted or modelled, only the pace of implementation. A sequential approach is being take to unlocking our offshore renewable resources to meet the 5 GW target by 2030. This is based on local demand but, in our view, it is inconsistent with where the sector is going, that is, floating offshore. In Scotland and elsewhere in the UK, the industry is moving apace. It has ditched the sequential approach and is considering going straight to floating. In Scotland, two thirds of applications are for floating - 74 applications, with the 16 successful applicants paying option fees of £700 million. This is the type of initial revenues that can be generated.

The Shannon Foynes Port Company has one of Ireland's other great resources, namely, the Shannon Estuary and its deepwater portal areas. We have our natural 80 GW resource side-by-side with the deep waters of the Shannon Estuary. They go hand in glove. One of the key criteria for unlocking the resource, apart from getting our strategic planning and our consent process right, is having sufficient deepwater port infrastructure to enable the deployment of the offshore floating wind farms in the first place. The scale of industrialisation in this context cannot be underestimated. If we are looking at 80 GW over the long term, it means an investment of €100 billion in today's money. Our report has shown that, in order to install a supply chain to support that investment, up to €12 billion will be required up to 2050. In referring to the supply chain, we are talking about facilities to build out the various components for the floating wind farms. Proximity is important because that electricity will have to compete at auction. The levelised cost of energy, or the cost of production of that electricity, is important. Therefore, the closer one's deepwater port infrastructure is to one's wind farms, the better. It cuts down on the transport costs of large-scale devices. In order for the Shannon Estuary to play a role, we need to ensure that we have the appropriate deepwater facilities to provide the location for that supply chain - fabrication yards for wind farm floating platform construction, cabling, anchoring systems, etc. The closer such facilities are to the wind farms, the more competitively and greenly we can handle the wind farms' manufacturing. This is important.

I mentioned 80 GW, but who will use it? Much of the demand for it will be non-Irish grid and could go into the production of alternative fuels, such as hydrogen and ammonia. In planning the delivery of green energy for Europe, one of the shortcomings of our current maritime area of consent, MAC, process is that it ties Irish grid connectivity to a MAC. This is not consistent if we want to develop this resource for the production of alternative fuels, given that such production does not need an onshore grid connection. This is one of the reasons we have stated that the MAC process should be opened up to floating offshore in order to facilitate investment in alternative fuel production. We have spoken to a number of interested parties, particularly from Germany. As the Chairman knows, the market is very active in the hydrogen oil space. Ireland lacks a couple of elements at the moment, although some of them are on the way, for example, a hydrogen policy. The demand is real.

We have a definitive resource in the 80 GW. It is not like oil and gas where we would have to go off, explore and spend a great deal of money only to perhaps get nothing. This resource of 80 GW plus is undisputed. We also have more than a route to market for the energy, in that there is a demand case to be made for it as well, be it local demand or export to Europe via alternative fuels. Normally in a business case, these are two of the main parts of the equation. In this situation, they are definitive.

The challenge for Ireland is how to get there and implement. The first part of implementation is the legislative consent process, which we want changed, to fast-track floating offshore. This is important from a port perspective. To get the new deepwater jetty I mentioned, we will have to spend €350 million. Our timeline is to have planning for that by 2024 or 2025. In the later stages, we will be engaging in financing strategies for that. If auctions are not available for the market to interact and start planning for floating offshore wind farms, and if there is no definitive market out there, our infrastructure will be delayed because we will not be able to finance it. If Ireland has not opened the market for floating offshore, potentially run auctions or have a hydrogen policy strategy pricing mechanism in place, the market itself will not be able to complete its business case to develop this floating offshore. Given lead-in times of up to seven or ten years, everything will get backed up and what is widely noted as the best resource in Europe, if not the world, will become uninvestable. Consider everything that is happening - decarbonisation requirements, net zero by 2050 and security of supply issues. This resource is available to us and the technology and know-how exist now. The hurdle is how the country looks at developing this resource. The pace of unlocking the 80 GW is the issue.