Seán Power (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)

No. For capital expenditure the Department of Finance is taking a hands-on approach. It is doing that in the interest of the country to ensure that what we are spending needs to be spent and that we are getting good value for the spend. I am being honest with the Deputy. I agree that there is huge potential in ocean energy. A study carried out by Bacon/ESBI calculated that up to 1,900 jobs could be created in the sector by 2020 if we invest in ocean energy technology. A great deal of work is taking place and our objective is to support research and applied research leading to full scale commercialisation of the technology. As I mentioned earlier, however, the technology has not yet been fully developed but it offers huge potential. We have been working on trying to put the nuts and bolts together and on putting a good team in place to ensure that we maximise the potential that exists.

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