Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The Business Postreported that, in the end, the Irish auction for offshore wind is set to result in the world's most expensive offshore wind. The results are likely to deliver average prices close to the €150 per MWh price cap. That is more than three times the price of offshore wind in Scotland and much higher than that in other European countries. The result for consumers will be electricity prices that are no lower than the very high points we saw over the course of the winter.

The Taoiseach is a deeply ideological man who is deeply committed to neoliberalism and the idea that only the free market can resolve these things, but I implore him to live in the real world. This is an absolute disaster for the environment and consumers. Rather than trying to attract all these private companies in with extremely high prices, would it not make much more sense for the State to say it has this huge surplus at present, that it will invest it, and have public investment in and development of offshore renewable energy?

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