Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The single biggest barrier to developing offshore wind in places such as Mayo is the grid infrastructure. Successive Governments have failed Mayo on the western economic corridor on the issue of renewable energy. There has been much talk about wind potential, yet no meaningful planning or preparation has been done.

I heard the Minister refer earlier to our being in a race and I wondered whether he was referring to a slow bicycle race, given the Grid25 strategy was prepared in 2008, 15 years ago. It clearly identified the problem in the grid capacity for developing offshore wind and wave energy in Mayo, but Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and all their partners in government have utterly failed the people of Mayo and the western seaboard by not addressing this issue and increasing the capacity of the grid.

There is scarce ambition in EirGrid's Shaping our Electricity Future strategy. It provides very little in the way of grid development. Without a grid with proper capacity, we cannot realise the potential of the energy development of the western seaboard. That absolutely has to be addressed.

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