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

Significant work has been undertaken over the past two years to develop the regulatory framework to enable the construction and operation of offshore wind farms and associated infrastructure. The national marine planning framework was adopted by the Government in May 2021 and is Ireland’s first marine spatial plan. The Maritime Area Planning, MAP, Act was enacted in December 2021 and established the legislative foundation for the new marine planning system. Under the MAP Act, a new maritime area consent, MAC, regime for offshore wind projects was developed by my Department. I issued the first MACs for seven phase 1 offshore projects in December last year. In addition, the new maritime area regulatory authority, MARA, will be established in July to assess planning applications for offshore development. MARA will have sole authority for granting further MACs for all future marine infrastructure required to deploy offshore wind energy.

Yesterday, EirGrid announced the final results of the first offshore wind auction, offshore renewable energy support scheme, ORESS 1, which will deliver more than 3 GW of offshore wind energy as a cheap, sustainable and secure indigenous alternative to imported fossil fuels. The successful phase 1 projects with MACs will progress through the planning system. After securing planning permission from An Bord Pleanála, the developers will commence offshore wind farm construction and deployment, which will become operational in the latter part of this decade. Further progress across all elements required to accelerate delivery of a sustainable offshore wind energy sector is being driven by my Department under the offshore wind delivery task force.

I will reference some specific examples of that. This task force is pulling all the various elements together. One of the key areas is the deployment and delivery of wind turbines at ports in addition to the industrial development opportunity that will arise. I was very pleased to visit the Port of Cork recently to see its incredible new facility. There is a very large container port system in Ringaskiddy and it, along with other locations in Cork and elsewhere, is a development where we could further enhance port infrastructure and have the necessary place for deployment of the wind industry. I was very encouraged by my visit to the Port of Cork, which is well placed to deliver on that, as well as other locations in Cork and elsewhere. It gives me confidence that we can get this built in time and, in that way, further enhance investor and public confidence in what we are doing.

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