Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The south and east coasts will be the next step in terms of unlocking offshore renewables. Hopefully with the development of floating offshore technology the west coast will begin to open up. There is no two ways about it; these projects will have a visual impact. There are people in my community, just as there are people in the communities of the Minister and of Deputy Matthews, who are legitimately concerned about the visual impact and concerned about other environmental impacts. I realise there is an onus on the companies to engage with communities. We have to talk about citizen engagement but we also have to talk about community benefit and do so in a real way. We have to feel as though we are deriving benefit from this, as an island and as an economy, and not just that the profits are being levied by large companies. There is a role in Government communications to get the message across on the scale of the challenge and the scale of the opportunity.

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