Mr. Noel Cunniffe:

Exactly. There are approximately 25 GW of offshore wind energy deployed in the world right now, and almost all of it is fixed-bottom. There are other countries in Europe that can deploy fixed-bottom technology farther out to sea, but that is because they have much shallower waters close to their coastlines. Even off the east coast, Irish waters get very deep very quickly. As such, deploying fixed-bottom technology is the right approach to take.

We represent floating wind energy members as well as fixed-bottom wind energy members. The floating wind energy community says that we need to establish a supply chain in Ireland and get offshore wind going right now so as to harness and take advantage of the floating wind energy opportunity fully. In order for us to do that, we need to deploy fixed-bottom technology as soon as possible this decade.