Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his question. I absolutely agree with its premise and his ambition. It is the core ambition of Powering Prosperity: Ireland's Offshore Wind Industrial Strategy, published by our Department last March. The strategy ensures that Ireland maximises the economic benefits associated with our climate and offshore renewable energy, ORE, targets. I commend Deputy Coveney, who led on the strategy as Minister in our Department. The strategy includes 40 targeted actions for implementation in 2024 and 2025 to support our offshore wind industry to rapidly deliver offshore wind projects of scale. It also maintains a focus on the sustainable development of Ireland's industry to ensure that our long-term goal of at least 37 GW by 2050 is met.

The strategy aims to build a strong and resilient offshore wind supply chain here, as well as exploring opportunities for Irish companies to play a major role in the development of offshore wind projects at home and abroad. It also explores opportunities to leverage Ireland’s existing strengths in research, development and innovation, RDI, to support the sector to reach the cutting edge of future developments in offshore wind. For the longer term, the strategy will consider routes to market for our abundant clean renewable energy, as well as assessing regional development opportunities, such as those referred to by Deputy Stanton, in areas central to the production of offshore wind energy.

Work is under way on the implementation of Powering Prosperity – Ireland’s Offshore Wind Industrial Strategy and my Department will oversee the implementation of the 40 actions. We will maintain close contact with action owners across Departments and agencies through our offshore wind industrial forum, through the interdepartmental group, the RDI working group and through membership of the offshore wind delivery task force.

Our officials continue to lead workstream 7 of the offshore wind delivery task force, which involves a detailed reporting mechanism and register for risks to delivery. This, in turn, will ensure the timely and effective implementation of each of the actions contained in the strategy.

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