Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I very much agree with the Deputy's vision of where we need to go. We were one of the initial leaders in offshore wind and then other countries, as the Deputy says, such as the UK, Germany, Holland and Belgium developed much quicker and much faster. However, we also developed renewables onshore. Within in a European context, we are in the top three countries in integrating new variable renewable power. We are actually quite successful in this area of renewable development, but that success now moves to both solar and offshore energy in particular.

The Deputy is right. We have a real opportunity, because we have a comparative advantage as a result of having a large sea area, where there are stronger winds. We have real capability. We need to be fast and at the same time, we need to get our environmental planning and bring coastal communities with us, including fishing communities and others.

It is absolutely feasible for us to do that to deliver that 5 GW before the end of this decade but then start on the additional 2 GW and on from there to the really big project which is going into deeper waters at much bigger scale. Everything we are doing is to get that planning process right so that we deliver the really big prospect, as the Deputy said, like our forefathers and women before us, who thought big when they set up the likes of Ardnacrusha. That is where we need to go.

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