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

As the Deputy knows, this Government set up a task force to look at the potential of the Shannon Estuary. My understanding is that in the next couple of months its report will come in. I have met that group on more than one occasion. It has a fantastic chairman who is very ambitious for the Shannon Estuary. A big part of that report will be around offshore wind and redeveloping the Shannon Foynes Port, which is going to involve hundreds of millions of euro in investment to make it ready to assemble some of the largest offshore wind energy infrastructure on the planet. We currently have a pipeline of approximately 27 GW worth of projects, which equates to €80 billion in capital investment. Investors want to be able to develop off Ireland's east, south and west coasts. We will have to do that in phases and with a State-led planning system, and that is what we are embarking on now. I assure the Deputy that the opportunities for the west of Ireland will be huge but they will take some time to deliver.

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