Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I think we are all in agreement in the House, which is a nice position to be in. We all accept that Ireland has a massive potential to develop its offshore wind generating capacity. It is important to reflect that, as a country, we are lucky in that we have a very small minority of people who do not support both the climate targets and the potential for our offshore wind. If it is done right, our offshore wind potential could overhaul our economy, that is, if we seize the opportunity to create national wealth and not just facilitate corporate profits and we create good jobs and indigenous industry and not just rely on far-off countries to do the work for us.

However, there are a number of areas of concern in order for us to achieve the targets. I wish to discuss some of them and some have already been flagged. We need the enabling infrastructure in place, which includes the planning system, the grid, the ports, the necessary regulation, the collaboration and the skilled workforce. We can accept that due to decades of inaction by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments, we have fallen way behind. We are world leaders in terms of intermittent energy and our grid being able to handle that. However, we have had a decade of inactivity in this country. It can be sometimes depressing to look at what could have been when one looks at Denmark and Scotland. To use that awful phrase, we are where we are. At least now we are going in the right direction and seeing that offshore wind potential being tapped into.

The planning system is a major concern. It is slow, adversarial and wracked with uncertainty. That is why Sinn Féin supports reform of the planning system and An Bord Pleanála. That also needs to be done correctly and not by reducing democratic oversight by communities or interested bodies. We called for greater resourcing of An Bord Pleanála in our alternative budget. We need greater resources to be provided not just to An Bord Pleanála but also to the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, EirGrid, and the newly formed maritime area regulation authority, MARA. We know from various Oireachtas climate committee hearings that those organisations - certainly EirGrid and the CRU, which are in existence - have flagged the fact that they are constantly looking out to get the workforce required to deliver on this potential for offshore wind.

The other thing we also want to see resourced is the full range of notifiable bodies and those environmental bodies that work to protect biodiversity and nature. It is correct that environmental bodies flag if there is an endangered or protected species where planning will go ahead. The problem is around the statutory timeframes for decision making and also the mitigation measures that might need to be put in place. In order to do their job properly, the environmental NGOs need to be properly resourced as well, especially given that they have not grown in size but the number of planning applications that they will have to deal with now that may have adverse effects on the environment and biodiversity will increase. Therefore, they also need to be properly resourced.

We also need to deliver on the designated marine area plans. It is critical that we strike the right balance between reducing emissions but also protecting our marine wildlife. It is important to note that not only can we be world leaders in terms of our offshore wind potential, we also have an opportunity to be world leaders in marine research, particularly around the indicator species that are living in our marine habitats that can be warning signals around increasing climate change. We could do that. We need to protect those habitats if we want to tap into that potential.

I welcome that the offshore auction delivered a low price or a price of €86, I think. However, we have concerns still around onshore wind and its price. It is one of the highest in Europe. We again call on the Minister to do what we have been calling for for a long time in Sinn Féin, which is that cross-government high level task force to work with industry and stakeholders to identify what is causing renewables, particularly onshore, to be so out of kilter with our European counterparts. That then has a knock-on impact for people’s electricity bills.

We also have concern around the ports. There is only one port on the island that has the infrastructure that is needed and it is in Belfast. Without more offshore-ready ports, we will either completely miss our climate targets or the wind farms will be built elsewhere. We could be growing jobs in Wexford, Cork, Limerick and elsewhere, but instead, those jobs could go to Britain or mainland Europe. It is important we address that and get our ports up to capacity.

The final thing I want to touch on is demand reduction. The Government has a target of delivering 80% renewable electricity by 2030, the heavy lifting of which will be done by offshore wind. Sinn Féin has been calling for that target since 2019, so we absolutely welcome the increased ambition. However, we need to be careful about targets that are based on a proportion of demand because we need to be reducing overall electricity demand. A 20% slice of a very large pie, even if it is 20% of fossil fuels, can be much greater than 30% of a smaller pie. I have concerns regarding a recent response to parliamentary question that received from the Minister, Deputy Ryan. There are no workers in the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications dedicated to demand reduction. I seek clarity as to whether that is the case. Certainly, as for the parliamentary response, it seems that a lot of staff are dedicated to demand-side management, which is a very different thing, but none dedicated to demand reduction. I call on the Minister to put in place expertise in demand reduction.