Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

We are discussing the decommissioning and removal of the Kinsale alpha platform. It is a relic of a time when we drilled holes in the ground to suck out gas and oil to burn. We took so much of these fossil fuels from the ground and burned them over so many decades that we have destroyed our environment and destabilised our climate. In the 1970s, when we sought our oil and gas fields, we did not know of the damage. It was a different era with far less consideration of our environment and limited knowledge of how emissions and carbon dioxide could overheat our planet. Cheap and abundant energy was our primary concern. We know much more today. We know that we can no longer continue to extract and burn fossil fuels. We know that across this country and across all parties, there is a desire to address climate change. We know that in some parties, there is willingness to act and not just talk about it.

Last week saw one of the most significant announcements ever in the battle to reduce fossil fuel use and emissions. The Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and our partners in government agreed that no more new oil or gas exploration licences will be granted. This is a significant step. Previous Administrations admitted that Ireland's action on climate change was insufficient and that we were laggards in that regard. With the Green Party in government, there has been a ban on new licences, no liquefied natural gas or fracked gas imports and a commitment to reduce our emissions in line with science, which has put us on the world stage as leaders in climate change.

We will depend on the marine environment to provide our future energy needs as we wean ourselves off our fossil fuel dependency. We look to a decade of development of offshore renewable wind energy. Our aim is to achieve 5 GW in the Irish Sea and Celtic Sea in that time, followed closely by 30 GW of floating offshore development as that technology improves. This harnessing of our strong wind potential is to provide clean green energy and energy resilience, with many new jobs across the entire supply chain of offshore renewables over the coming decades. There will be surety of supply through interconnectors and we will no longer be reliant on being at the end of a pipe with a €6 billion fossil fuel import bill. Substantial community funds will be derived from these developments, which will benefit communities across the country.

We can be leaders on renewable energy as well as on climate action. These developments can and will have environmental impacts. The construction, operation, maintenance and eventual decommissioning of wind turbines, cables and substations, just like the decommissioning at Kinsale about which we are talking today, needs careful monitoring. We need to ensure that we have the highest level of scientifically based environmental assessment of any proposed construction. The life expectancy of an offshore wind turbine is about 30 years. It is a very harsh environment and after approximately 25 or 30 years, they have to be repowered. Such repowering is required, as is maintenance on and upgrading of turbines, underwater cables and substations during the expected lifespan of the facility. All of this must be done in a manner which puts the preservation and protection of the marine environment to the fore. That has to be our number one priority. Energy resilience and coastal communities are considerations but protection of our marine environment has to be to the fore.

We depend on the marine environment for climate balance. That is not discussed very often but, as a planet, we really are dependent on a healthy ocean and a healthy marine environment to balance our climate needs. Leaving the cables and remnants of these developments behind in the sea when these installations and turbines reach the end of their lifespans should not become the norm. We should build that into the planning process and we should look at how it is to be monitored and managed in the future.

I am delighted to see that the Minister's Department has produced a plan to designate marine protected areas. I am particularly glad to see that this is being led by my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan. We need to make sure that the designation of marine protected areas does not lag the consent process for offshore renewable development. These processes must work in tandem. We need to protect, but we also need to develop and those things should work in tandem. Just yesterday, the Oireachtas joint committee completed its pre-legislative scrutiny report of the marine planning and management development Bill, which will be produced next week. For the benefit of Deputy Mac Lochlainn and to address the questions he raised, we recommend that aquaculture be considered either through this Bill or through other marine planning processes that will be developed under the national marine planning framework. Consideration of public consultation was also raised as an issue. I am glad to tell the House that we considered this matter at length in the committee. I thank members for the cross-party agreement that was reached in the committee for the placing of marine protection and public consultation to the forefront of the recommendations in the report, which is to come shortly.

This Bill is essentially the planning Act for the sea. With the marine protected area legislation, it will be the framework for marine protection and development for the future. If we get this right, and I do believe this Government will get it right as it has the commitment and support to do so, I foresee that any future Minister standing before the House in 50 or 60 years' time discussing the decommissioning of wind turbines will not be looking at the same issues we are looking at today in respect of the Kinsale gas field. I would hope that such a Minister will be able to acknowledge that a government with foresight, acting with knowledge on how to reverse climate chaos, stopped further drilling for gas and oil and gave us carbon neutrality. We have a commitment to do that and we will deliver on it. By then, the Kinsale gas field will truly be an ancient relic and a reminder of a time when we came close to destroying our planet.

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