Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I listened to everything the Senators had to say and I am glad there is cross-party support for the motion. I will start with Senator Garvey who asked about offshore wind in County Clare. Moneypoint has a huge grid connection and will be part of the future renewable energy grid and electricity supply of our country so where does it fit in? Unsurprisingly, Senator Timmy Dooley also asked about Clare and in fact, a DMAP, which will start next year, is being prepared for the county. Clare has not been forgotten and will certainly be part of the future.

Senator Garvey also asked about marine protected areas, MPAs. The MPA legislation is at an advanced stage of development by the Department of housing. In advance of the enactment of this legislation, the MPA advisory group of independent experts conducted an ecological sensitivity analysis of the Celtic Sea, which was published in June 2024. The central objective of this analysis was to provide spatial recommendations for potential future MPA designations in the Celtic Sea, which will inform decisions regarding the location of offshore wind developments. This advisory group highlighted minimal overlap between these areas identified for possible future MPA designations and the four maritime areas in the draft south coast DMAP. The draft DMAP includes provisions that all offshore wind developments must have regard to future protected site designations and new, improved environmental data. This will include possible future MPA designations by the Minister for housing.

The process of making a DMAP starts with working out where is the best place for one. It is a plan-led system rather than developer-led. The State sits down and tries to work out where is the best place to put a cluster of wind farms. Where are the shipping lanes, where are the subsea cables and where are the sensitive environmental areas? There is a draft SPA, which has not gone into effect yet, off the south east coast of County Wexford. That area has been specifically excluded. By working with the expert advisers who will recommend the marine protected areas, all the potential areas that could be MPAs were excluded from the DMAP. That is really the process of making the DMAP and ensuring it does not overlap.

Senator Boyhan asked about regulatory impact assessment and whether the auction will take place next year. An assessment was carried out as part of the process. A comprehensive assessment was completed by the Civil Service as part of this work. There will be an auction next year for this 900 MW DMAP and somebody will win that. Finally, he stressed the fact he is not a NIMBY and this work has to be done. I know there are people who are solidly against offshore wind no matter what but the majority of people realise there is huge potential in offshore wind. It is, as many Senators have said, part of our future prosperity and energy security. It will protect us against the kind of event that happened in the war where a remote war either in Russia, near Russia or in the Middle East can actually affect the daily lives of people who find they do not have enough money in their bank accounts because it has all been spent on imported fossil fuels. We will protect ourselves from that in the future.

Senator Dooley raised the question about fixed-bottom versus floating turbines. He admits he knows it will happen post-2030. There are floating turbines in existence; they are all on demonstrator sites at the moment and Ireland is working on a demonstrator project. In the coming weeks, we will work with industry to work out the terms of that demonstrator project We absolutely need experience with floating wind turbines and we need to do it as soon as possible. When we have a mature and viable technology, it would be great if Ireland were the first to deploy those wind turbines.

We are starting with this DMAP in an area that is below 70 m so we can use fixed-bottom turbines. At the moment, the price differential is that a floating turbine is three times the price of a fixed-bottom turbine but I am sure that will change over time. Companies such as TFI Marine are producing seasprings. This is an Irish company that is trying to sell that technology in Korea ,which greatly reduces the cost of floating wind turbines by dampening the effect of the waves on those turbines.

There will be huge opportunities in the supply chain and there is a demand for new skills. Our analysis shows that approximately 60% of the jobs that come from offshore wind turbines will be located locally. We expect that there will be hundreds of jobs in Waterford and Wexford as a result of this DMAP, which is something to be celebrated and welcomed.Senator Byrne asked whether the 5 GW target for 2030 is realistic; it is. The first 3 GW have already been contracted. We also have other targets, such as 8 GW of solar, which we are definitely going to reach. This is our glide path. This is our central energy and industrial strategy for the country. Everything is moving towards making this work and part of that is the speeding up and improvement of the planning and consenting process. Today is an historic day. After many months of working on the new planning Bill, it is due to be approved by the Dáil.

Senator Byrne also asked whether a regulatory sandbox is going to happen. My Department is working with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to ensure the regulatory sandbox will be ready alongside the floating wind demonstrator project next year.

Senator McGahon pointed out the benefits of offshore wind for energy security and said that this is not just a national matter. It means the EU overall will become more secure and we will have continental energy security. It is true that by combining and linking our grids together, we can reach a position where when one country is in surplus, it can help another in deficit. As a result, both countries will have lower-price electricity. It is important we manage to feed our electricity back and forth across the border in our own country and that the North-South interconnector gets built as soon as possible.

Senator McGahon told us he has developed a passion for the possibilities of the renewable energy transition and the benefits for the general public. I am delighted to hear that. I am very happy that a climate committee delegation visited Scotland to see the demonstration projects and offshore wind in practice and what Scotland is capable of. I am sure we will learn from and develop from that. It cannot be something only the Green Party is promoting. I am delighted that Senator Chambers and others expressed real enthusiasm for this as it will bring us long-term prosperity. We will take advantage of a resource in this country that was never harvested. I was taught in school that we did not have much in the way of natural resources. It turns out we are the windiest country in the world and with all our choppy waters, we will produce massive quantities of energy and secure our prosperity in the future.

Senator Gavan would like to see things moving faster. The Government produced the Maritime Area Planning Act 2021, establishing the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority and the national marine planning framework. We also have our first DMAP and 3 GW of wind energy consented. We are moving forward. It takes a number of years to build wind turbines but they will be coming onshore at a rate of knots. A total of 5 GW is only the start of it. We are heading towards 20 GW by 2040 and 37 GW by 2050. We will have a vast quantity of renewable energy, which we will not be able to use ourselves. We will be exporting it in multiple forms, whether that is through electricity interconnectors, hydrogen, ammonia or through adding value to products within Ireland. We could be using high-energy processes, such as extracting ores or transforming it by transforming data with that electricity and then exporting the product, which is data, through subsea cables. That is our future as a prosperous country.

Senator Chambers likened this to Ireland's gold and she is absolutely right. The delivery of this offshore wind energy will help us with the price of electricity and reduce the risk of power cuts. It will give us a security and a lasting strength. The Senator asked what our unique selling point, USP, will be in the future, what is it we will have and whether we will have enough energy to sustain our digital economy going into the future. Our future USP is going to be based around a combination of skills, this surplus of electricity and the stable political and social system we have in Ireland. It is a good place to set up business because it has a predictable environment. We have a highly skilled population and, at the same time, we will have a lot of electricity available to us.

Senator Gavan worried that there is no money in the budget for the grid. We allocated a special extra amount of €750 million for next year, as additional capital spending on the grid. That is only the start of it. Ireland is going to invest billions of euro between now and 2030 and tens of billions of euro are being invested around Europe to strengthen grids. Our grid is changing from a system that took energy from a very small number of generators that moved it in one way to consumers towards a grid where everybody is generating electricity and has solar panels. Electricity will move in two directions around the grid to provide us with deep security. However, it is a huge change in the way that the grid works.