Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The south coast and the area around Cork Harbour have a key role in Ireland’s offshore renewable energy future, a greener power grid and energy independence. To achieve that, however, we need to ensure we have people with the skills required. The Government's Climate Action Plan 2023 places offshore wind power at the centre of the State's commitment to producing up to 80% of our energy from renewable sources by 2030. To do that, we must ensure we are training enough people to meet the demand.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment published Skills for Zero Carbon, produced by its expert group on future skills. It looked to assess in detail how many people, doing which kinds of jobs, we would need to deliver our renewable energy, retrofitting and electric vehicle targets by 2030. It estimated, for example, that by the end of 2030, we would need an additional 552 wind turbine technicians and more than 1,300 ship’s crew and officers for wind alone. It also estimated we needed more than 1,700 electrical engineers and more than 100 ecologists, as well as electrical fitters, plasterers and so on. We are simply not training anywhere near enough to meet the demand we hope to have by the end of 2030.

Furthermore, we have no guarantee we can hold on to the ones we have. These people will be in high demand. A skilled turbine technician, for example, has a skill set he or she can take almost anywhere. There is a huge shortage throughout Europe of these kinds of roles that are needed to develop offshore wind energy. If, therefore, wind farms in other European countries, for example, are moving ahead of us in their development pipeline, they are going to look to hire engineers and turbine technicians from Ireland to work on their wind farms. We need seriously to ramp up our skills pipeline both in the technological universities and through the apprenticeship model, given a whole range of roles will be needed.

I agree with the points made by Deputies Mac Lochlainn, O'Rourke and Conway-Walsh regarding the grid. Our ambition in that respect needs to be increased significantly. There is a considerable opportunity here. We can be a world leader. As I said, Cork can play an especially crucial role. While the offshore renewable electricity support scheme, ORESS 1, was a milestone, an awful lot more is needed to ensure the capacity is there to realise the enormous untapped potential. It is such a key part of our industrial and energy future, and we cannot leave any stone unturned. That is certainly the vision our party spokesperson, Deputy O'Rourke, has been putting forward but we need to see more ambition from the Government, not least when it relates to the grid.

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