Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to share my time with Deputy Berry. Due to the failure to progress this vital legislation over the past decade, back in 2018 I, as Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, secured Cabinet approval for the prioritisation of this cross-departmental legislation, which was driven by the Department of An Taoiseach. It was clear to me back in 2018 as a signatory of the North Seas Energy Cooperation, which was established to facilitate cost-effective deployment of offshore renewable energy, that Ireland needed to tap into this huge economic and environmentally sustainable resource off our coasts. However, I knew we could not do this alone, and in May 2017, along with the European Commission and 13 other member states, I signed Ireland up to the Clean Energy for EU Islands initiative. This law is the very first positive step to move on this agenda, but Ireland requires a radical overhaul of its industrial development policy if we are to achieve our climate goals and fully grasp the economic opportunities off our coasts. This cannot be done on a piecemeal or haphazard basis, as has happened in the past. We must have a very strategic focus on what is in Ireland's long-term interests and not allow this just to be developer-led.

It is estimated that we have somewhere between 50 and 70 GW of clean, renewable electricity off our coasts. That is enough not just to meet our own long-term needs here in Ireland but to produce enough electricity to meet the demands of France and Austria as well. We as a country need to lead from the front on this, create an IDA of the seas and become the major global clean energy exporter just like the Arab states have done with oil. We do not want to wait for another Mainstream moment, or a situation whereby private developers decide how Ireland exploits its renewable energy resources and who that energy is going to be supplied to, just like what happened with Mainstream Renewable Power and Element Power's plan to erect 1,000 massive wind turbines right across the midland counties to supply electricity to the United Kingdom.

This is already starting again. Plans are being advanced to build a major €2 billion port on a 1,000-acre site at Bremore north of Dublin, on the Dublin-Meath border, in order to exploit the potential that offshore wind turbines have to offer. There is no doubt that there is huge potential for such a port, but is it located in the right place? Let us consider that we are likely to have only one such large port on the island of Ireland. It is projected that there will be ten times more renewable electricity generated off the west coast of Ireland than there will be off the east coast. Why are we not focusing on Foynes, Galway, Ros an Mhíl and Killybegs? They are the ports that need to be developed. Foynes will probably be the key port in relation to that. That is where the focus should be.

This issue is not just about where the development happens but who will benefit from it. Last week, we read that the Australian infrastructure giant, Macquarie, has bought the rights to develop an offshore wind farm 5 km off the Connemara coast. It has bought the rights to develop this farm off our coast. When I was the Minister with responsibility for energy, I publicly expressed my concerns about how rights were given for connection to the electricity grid, for wind farms, which were subsequently sold off to make vast sums of money - a licence was effectively sold off - without a shovel being put in the ground. We issued the licences, the people who secured those licences sold them to the highest bidder, and here we are, at it again, issuing authorities to develop projects that are then sold. What did the State benefit from the sale last week of that licence? Nothing. Who will ultimately pay for that? Irish electricity customers will ultimately pay for that. Families around the country who are struggling to pay their electricity bills are the ones funding the speculation, which is starting again, and which was exploited over the last decade in relation to grid connections. It cannot be allowed to happen. However, we are told to fear not. We are told that as a result of the renewable electricity support scheme, the community in south Connemara will benefit from a community benefit fund for 15 years. What will happen after that? We are not giving these rights out for 15 years. It is expected that crumbs will be thrown to the communities in Connemara and that will be good enough for them. That is not acceptable. Those funds should be ring-fenced for long-term economic development in south Connemara over the full lifetime during which the farm generates electricity. It is not about buying jerseys for the local football or soccer team.

I fear that Ireland will end up giving away its renewable energy rights in order to hit our 2030 and 2040 targets in an attempt to be the good boy at the top of the class, while electricity customers continue to pay the most expensive electricity in Europe. Instead, we have to exploit this resource, design the bidding process based on job creation along our west coast, ensure that the State secures a royalty for every single megawatt generated and supplied to our national grid or into the new Atlantic interconnector, which connects and supplies electricity directly into the European grid from our western coastal waters, and become the cheapest country in Europe for electricity. The way we do that is by establishing an offshore renewable development authority similar to the Industrial Development Authority that will drive a fully co-ordinated national action plan and will have responsibilities ranging from research and development and supply chain development to the commercial deployment of renewable energy. In the interim, the Western Development Commission, for example, should take over the vital co-ordination role in the short term until that organisation is in place.

On the issue of electricity costs, many households are facing notifications from electricity suppliers that they will have to pay more for electricity. This comes back to the lack of co-ordination. There are families struggling to pay their electricity bills throughout this country. This is not just in terms of the cost of producing electricity and the associated public service obligations, but it is also compounded by carbon taxes. It is very frustrating that those families are paying for subsidies for electricity that is supplied to data centres in this country. They are paying subsidies that go towards the cost of building the infrastructure for those data centres. I believe that is amoral. I fought vehemently against the current approach. In 2018, the Cabinet decided on a new policy statement on data centres that was to ensure that ordinary hard-working families around the country would not subsidise the electricity going into data centres, although that measure has yet to be implemented by the Government. We now see the impact it is having on electricity supply in this country. Data centres sucking up electricity will leave us in a situation this winter like that in African countries where there are blackouts due to insufficient electricity supply because we have not planned appropriately for this. We need data centres but they should cover their own electricity costs. Irish families should never have to subsidise the cost for that electricity. It should never be on their backs. There must be a planning and supply condition in terms of EirGrid providing them with electricity, and the data centres must enter into power purchase agreements, which are effectively electricity supply agreements, with the offshore developers. Let them fund the development of the offshore renewable electricity in the short term rather than Irish electricity customers - Irish families - again having to fund and subsidise the construction of these turbines off our coast.

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