Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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These is probably not as much space in Cork but very large cranes has been assembled in Cork docklands in the last number of years, which is not that dissimilar to the scale of some of the things that need to be done with offshore wind. Again, that would involve a huge amount of primary investment to create the platforms in the deepwater ports to do that.

To outline what I think is necessary from an industrial strategy perspective, it is not just what the task force is attempting to do and needs to do, which is to decide who is doing what, what is it going to cost, where is it going to happen and how do we facilitate these huge pieces of infrastructure being assembled in a port facility, and then towed out to a place where they have a licence and a permit to produce energy from wind. This issue is also about giving consideration to how does that reshape the Irish economy, where do we get the skills to facilitate that and what does that mean for our universities, and what does that mean for local authorities in terms of changing their county development plans to create brownfield and greenfield sites that can take advantage of the power that comes onshore from this infrastructure in places like the Shannon Estuary, Cork harbour, Killybegs perhaps, Rosslare, Waterford and Arklow. Other issues include the question of how are we investing in planning for that, whether we are looking at new funding and financing models and whether the State wants to be part of that.