Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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97. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the steps he will take to ensure citizen engagement with offshore wind energy projects in Ireland; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18847/22]

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Deputy Ó Cathasaigh is to introduce the next question.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I am asking this question on behalf of my colleague, Deputy Matthews. The question relates to an issue affecting the constituencies of the Minister and the Ministers of State, Deputy Matthews's constituency in Wicklow, as well as Wexford, my own constituency of Waterford and around the coast into Cork. I am referring to the large-scale development of offshore wind. What steps will the Minister take to ensure citizen engagement with offshore wind energy projects and will he make a statement on the matter?

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Citizen engagement is at the heart of Ireland's energy and climate transformation. Local coastal communities will be central to the decision-making processes of community engagement initiatives as part of Ireland's offshore renewable energy journey.

The Maritime Area Planning Act 2021 provides the legal underpinning to an entirely new marine planning system which will enable the realisation of our offshore renewable energy ambition by establishing a well-regulated and inclusive consenting process, with comprehensive environmental assessments and consultations, to enable meaningful community engagement.

Work on a revised offshore renewable energy development plan, which will provide an evidence base for the identification of areas most suitable for the sustainable development of offshore renewable energy, has been initiated by my Department. As part of that process, my Department established an advisory group to facilitate the development of the plan and participation in the spatial planning process by all relevant stakeholders from the economic, environmental and social pillars.

I had the privilege of participating in the first national climate stakeholder forum last month, attended by over 120 delegates who discussed various issues including engagement by them. My Department has also recently completed a public consultation on the draft terms and conditions for the first offshore wind auction under the renewable electricity support scheme, RESS, which will support offshore wind development in Ireland. Projects successful at auction will be required to make significant community benefit contributions from an early stage in the life cycle of an offshore wind project. There has been a significant response from local communities and my Department is now carefully considering all submissions before issuing a formal response later this year.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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The south and east coasts will be the next step in terms of unlocking offshore renewables. Hopefully with the development of floating offshore technology the west coast will begin to open up. There is no two ways about it; these projects will have a visual impact. There are people in my community, just as there are people in the communities of the Minister and of Deputy Matthews, who are legitimately concerned about the visual impact and concerned about other environmental impacts. I realise there is an onus on the companies to engage with communities. We have to talk about citizen engagement but we also have to talk about community benefit and do so in a real way. We have to feel as though we are deriving benefit from this, as an island and as an economy, and not just that the profits are being levied by large companies. There is a role in Government communications to get the message across on the scale of the challenge and the scale of the opportunity.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I agree with Deputy Ó Cathasaigh. There are a number of areas where we have to accelerate the roll-out of the climate solutions to meet our climate targets. The debate last night showed this. This is with regard to switching to heat our homes, sustainable mobility and offshore renewable energy. The Government is establishing a number of task forces to look to see how we manage this, particularly in the next three years. With regard to offshore renewables it will be about making sure we complete the auctioning, consenting and planning permission and that contracts are started for the first phase of projects. They are relevant projects that we have been in planning for up to ten years. Not all may progress but I expect a significant number to do so. This group of projects will be central in terms of the arrival in the middle of this decade; in 2026 and 2027. The second phase will be the development of more projects as we move farther into southern and western waters and start floating offshore projects. They will also have to be consented through the auction process in time for us to meet our 2030 target of 5 GW.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I thank the Minister. He is speaking about overreaching national targets, and of course we must think about these, particularly in the context of the carbon budgets passed last night. There is a flip side of the coin which is not strictly related but is very closely related. Last night there was a public meeting in Clonea-Power, County Waterford. A large group of local residents came together to voice their concerns about a very large solar project in the region of 145 acres. I could not be at the meeting but I have heard there was significant community concern about a visual impact and an industrial impact. The residents did not necessarily see the community deriving benefit. I think back to the Covid communications we had. They were so good in ensuring we had community buy-in and everybody understood the scale of the challenge and was prepared to play their part. We need a communications strategy of this order so people understand the scale of the challenge and feel as though they are deriving community benefit from these projects.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I completely agree with Deputy Ó Cathasaigh, particularly his opening remarks. To me this is about empowering communities to feel ownership of such projects, particularly with regard to the benefit that communities can gain. In the context of Deputy Matthews's question, ensuring citizen engagement in these processes is paramount. I echo what Deputy Ó Cathasaigh said on the benefits and how we can instill it in communities during the planning process for these projects.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I agree with both Deputies. I was giving the framework of what we are looking to do. Within that, however, it is critical that in the planning application process there is real public consultation and that it is an open, transparent and engaged process. Not every project will get planning permission. It is critical that there are community benefits and that all of the revenue does not just accrue to private developers. It is critical the State has a central role in the transmission network planning. There are revenues to the State from this. There will be further community benefit in a variety of ways. The operation and maintenance of these facilities will see a complete turnaround in Irish ports throughout the country. These will be typically smaller ports where it will bring economic life and jobs to them. There will be larger deployment ports in Cork, Shannon and Rosslare. They have huge industrial development potential, not only in the deployment of these turbines but also using the power when it comes back in. This includes the area of Dublin. It will become a regional balanced-development economic opportunity, particularly for the south east, south west, west and north west, as I said in the Chamber yesterday.

In this consultation, we have to make sure that what we do is within our environmental constraints and that we manage this carefully, particularly in terms of bird life and other marine life. We can get this balance right. We happen to have one of the windiest areas in the world. Our sea area is seven times our land area and the scale there gives us opportunities to optimise for local communities, as well as economic security for the country.