Mr. Michael Mahon:

I thank Deputy Kenny for the question. I will highlight first of all some of the progress which has been made. I touched on the challenges around planning as part of that. We submitted 20 planning applications in the past year, which was a record for us. Some of them were for big projects and some were for smaller ones. Separately, some of those planning decisions came through very quickly, quite a number in fact. Some 20 positive decisions came through from previous years. There was a lull at a period of time with An Bord Pleanála but we are seeing that bank starting to transition out.

We are seeing from the industry that there has not been as many positive progressions of wind projects, in particular, in planning decisions in recent years. That needs, ideally, to speed up. We have, however, seen a number come through in the last number of months. Solar farms seem to be getting a decision more quickly than wind farms. That is starting to progress.

We are advancing our projects and that capital programme is moving at speed. We handed 40 projects over to ESB and into construction last year. There are a number of other projects where we are waiting on the industry and for positive planning consent before we move those projects along. It is actually moving in that space.

We have progressed the foreshore licence we need for the Celtic interconnector and the foreshore licence we required for the interconnector which will connect Kerry and Clare. We are now engaged with the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority, MARA, and will continue to engage with it when we are looking at the consent required for offshore wind. For some of the new infrastructure, we require a connection from Blackrock to Poolbeg to facilitate the upgrade of the network in the Dublin area and for the connection between Poolbeg and North Wall, we need to install a cable across the Liffey.

Things are well under way in the engagement in the foreshore space as well and all the wind projects which were successful in the renewable electricity support scheme, RESS 1, will be submitting their planning applications to An Bord Pleanála before the end of the second quarter of this year.