Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising the question. I know that given his previous experience as a Minister, the issue is something that he knows a lot about. I was in Glasgow yesterday with the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, who, people should be glad to hear, has been drawn into serious negotiations on issues such as climate finance and so on, in terms of trying to get general agreement, which I think is a recognition of where Ireland stands now in the challenge of climate action debate. Of course, former President Mary Robinson spoke passionately yesterday, which made a big impression and drew big crowds in the COP26 campus in Glasgow. I shared the stage with her at a number of events and I can tell the Deputy that the crowds were there for her.

We are a credible voice in this space now, but we have to deliver on that. The ambition that we have in this country around a renewable energy revolution in many ways, in terms of the scale of what we need to do between now and 2030, is going to be hugely demanding of the Government in terms of licensing systems, certainty, grid management and investment and indeed, bringing new technologies on stream, in particular around hydrogen, by the end of this decade. We are planning supply increases, including 5 GW of offshore wind, an extra 1.3 GW onshore, 1 GW from solar power, around 0.5 GW from microgeneration, which we have been talking about for years but have not managed to deliver, but I think we will, 1.45 GW from batteries and another 2 GW from conventional power sources, predominantly gas-fired power stations. We have got to do all of that in the space of less than ten years, and as I said, we have to provide the investment environment for it to be done, because predominantly, it is all about private sector investment. That is a huge challenge, particularly on the offshore side, where we are finalising legislation, as well as a marine spatial planning plan, and putting certainty around licensing and auctions in place for offshore wind developers, in respect of both fixed and floating platforms, to deliver on that enormous potential not just on the east coast, but also on the south and west coasts.

The challenge in the short term, of course, is one of certainty of supply. The CRU has been challenged in recent weeks and months, as we know, and as the Deputy has raised in this House. The fact that the Huntstown and Whitegate gas-fired power stations were both offline for a number of months has contributed to those challenges. Huntstown is now back online and Whitegate will be online before the end of this month, which will make life a bit easier. It is a difficult management exercise while we bring the substantial renewables that we are planning for onto the system.

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