Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motion. Along with colleagues in the Regional Group I bring this motion before the House today and hope that all sides of the House will support us.

Ireland has one of the largest maritime areas in the EU and it is over seven times larger than our land mass. Our maritime area covers almost 500,000 sq. km, which represents a 220 million acre marine resource. With these resources we have the potential to develop over 70,000 MW of offshore renewable energy. What this means in real terms is that we in Ireland have an opportunity to be a major exporter of green energy and could potentially power much of Europe by 2050.

We are in a unique position to exploit this opportunity. By doing so, we can potentially attract over €100 billion of investment, which in turn will not only provide green renewable energy but will also provide real sustainable jobs along our coasts, including areas in my own constituency such as Louth and east Meath.

As everyone knows, our current energy system is powered by non-sustainable imported fossil fuels. As we all know, we are very susceptible to price increases, as has happened over the past 12 months. We in the Regional Group believe we have a great opportunity to make ourselves almost self-sufficient with offshore renewable energy. The Climate Action Plan 2021 commits to increase renewables to meet 80% of our electricity demands by 2030. If this is to achieved, Ireland needs a doubling of offshore generation capacity of the eastern and southern coasts.

Our motion calls on the Government to support a number actions. It seeks the Government to immediately draft an offshore renewable action plan to bring together all the key stakeholders, including all third level and further education institutions, as well as development agencies that include the Western Development Commission. It should draw up a strategy to ensure all possible offshore sites are fully considered in terms of economic benefits, including high-value jobs they can bring from the exploitation of the massive renewable energy resources off our coast.

We are also calling for the maritime area regulatory authority to be established, fully resourced and operational within the next 12 months to capitalise on the growing demand for offshore renewable deployment. We are calling for an offshore renewable development authority to be set up similar to IDA Ireland that will drive a fully co-ordinated national action plan to make Ireland a leading global clean energy exporter. This new authority should be given the responsibility to co-ordinate the Government implementation of the offshore renewable action plan.

We are also calling for Enterprise Ireland, in conjunction with the offshore renewable development authority, to support and develop the establishment of new indigenous Irish businesses in the renewable energy supply chain. We are calling for the urgent drafting of a green hydrogen strategy involving the emerging industry across the EU, as well as key domestic stakeholders to assess hydrogen's suitability as a key future energy source for our economy. We are calling for investment in all our ports with the capacity to facilitate the assembly, deployment and maintenance of offshore renewable energy technologies.

We also need to immediately design and prepare a strategy in conjunction with the EU Commission to fund and construct an Atlantic electricity interconnector, which would land west and south-west coast renewable energy directly into the mainland Europe electricity grid. We want to ensure that all offshore renewable energy rights issued will not just be dependent on the speed of commissioning and price to the consumer but also take into consideration the annual community rebate, along with the domestic employment generated in the manufacture, deployment and maintenance of such infrastructure.

It is estimated that we in Ireland would only require 10% of the total offshore energy produced, leaving the remaining 90% available for export to the rest of Europe.

This has massive potential for us all at this time, as we are trying to turn to renewable energy sources for our energy needs. If we could export 90% of this renewable energy to our neighbours in Europe then surely we could drive down the cost of energy to the consumer.

We are looking for the consumer to switch to electric vehicles and heat systems with electrically powered heat pumps, all of which require massive energy resources. The motion before the House today shows that we in the Regional Group firmly believe that ambitious climate targets can be met. I sincerely hope that all sides of the House see the merits of this motion and support it.

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