Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank both Ministers for their positive reaction to our motion. It is important also that they have taken on board the Sinn Féin amendment, which also ties in with what we are saying.

I will recap on some of the comments by speakers. I thank every speaker for the positive contributions, as the Minister of State has alluded to. It is important to have sustainability in what we are doing into the future. Sustainability means that we do things right and in a way that Ireland Inc will benefit from this. It is important to reiterate that in essence our motion seeks to establish an offshore renewable development authority, to construct an Atlantic interconnector and to designate Ireland as a European centre for excellence in the manufacturing of offshore renewable energy technology. These are three basic points but these measures will take huge effort and huge commitment from us as a country and from us as politicians. We will need to have the energy within ourselves to make sure that we do this and that we do it now.

The planning regimes we have are all very fine but in the Minister of State's response he spoke about the Department of Transport looking to publish a policy statement debate about our ports. We need to go beyond policy statements at this stage. The Shannon Foynes Port, the Port of Galway, and Rossaveel Port in our own area on the west coast, need to have plans. I do not mean plans or policies to be talked about; we need to be able to develop these ports to make sure we capture the benefits that will arise. The Shannon Estuary task force comes under the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Again, we welcome what is going on there but we need to make sure that it is co-ordinated. The cross-departmental offshore renewable energy team is chaired by the Minister, Deputy Ryan's Department. Enterprise Ireland is also focusing on the development of SME capacity. Because we have all of these very important strands in place, the motion is showing the need to ensure that we have one lead authority to make sure that everything is done in a timely fashion. This is the essence of the Private Members' motion. We must learn from our mistakes. The onshore wind energy strategy has been piecemeal. This is a problem. When one considers the issues that are now arising, such as local authorities refusing to give consents to developers to put cables underground, this is the type of gap we are creating that needs to be sorted out urgently.

With offshore energy, we need to make sure that we do not make the same mistakes and that we pick up on the possibility of them happening. We must also ensure that we protect our biodiversity, as stated, which is very important to us out on the seas. We should not make the same mistakes as the past, but, more importantly, we need to take ownership of this potential for the development of Ireland. It is not for Ireland west, south or east; it is for all of Ireland and we need to take full advantage of the potential there. However, we need to do it now. MARA should be in place next year. We should not have to wait until 2023 for that. I do not see why we have to wait until then to get it in place. While we do not have the facilities or the organisations in place that are supposed to drive this on, nothing is happening. That is the issue.

I accept the bona fides of everyone in government to push this along but we need to have a centre, a head to deliver it and direct it to make sure that everything happens on time so that we become the centre of excellence in Europe for green energy. We can produce enough energy to feed a great deal of Europe's demand. We can take the potential from that. We need Ireland to have ownership. The benefits must accrue to Ireland. We do not want to end up sitting, looking out onto our seas to watch floating turbines being dragged out to Denmark and Norway for servicing and maintenance when they should be coming to our shores. We have to develop the infrastructure here to take on this enormous potential. As others stated, this is the new Ardnacrusha moment. For me, it is the new industrial development. Offshore energy will create that for us. We can be at the centre of it. We can be at the centre of Europe for it but we must do so in time.

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