Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I raised a number of questions in my contribution earlier but I want to focus on one now. I am referring to the relaxation in the European Union of state aid rules, which has been taken advantage of overwhelmingly by Germany and France. Some 66% of all the applications approved by the Commission for relaxation of state aid rules were from those two countries. We do not want those with the deepest pockets to be able to distort the level playing field of European free trade. One area where we desperately need significant investment, which the Government said it will not make because of the restrictions on state aid rules, is our ports. If we are going to take advantage of the requirement to decarbonise our economy and build the offshore wind farms we are required to build to meet our targets by 2030, we need to invest in our ports now. Will the Minister of State ensure a formal application is made to the Commission to invest significantly, both from our own strategic investment bank and from the State directly, in ports? I am thinking particularly of Rosslare Europort, which is ready with a €200 million scheme to service our offshore wind needs. Otherwise, we will lose that opportunity to ports outside this jurisdiction.

See this speech in context