Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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102. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport when he intends to update the national ports policy; when he will designate ports on the east, south and west coasts for the construction and development of offshore wind projects and allocate investment for the upgrades required; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30741/22]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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A port capacity study is currently underway and is due for completion shortly. Upon its finalisation a full review of National Ports Policy will commence later this year which will look at the overall ports policy framework.

Given Ireland’s increased ambition in Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) of 5GW of offshore wind by 2030 and the potential of at least 30GW of floating offshore wind power in our deeper waters in the Atlantic, and, pending the review of overall National Ports Policy in 2022, the Department of Transport, in conjunction with the Irish Maritime Development Office (IMDO), conducted an assessment in 2021 of the options for Irish State ports to facilitate the ORE sector and assist in Ireland achieving its emission reduction targets.

Following the assessment, last December I announced an ORE Ports Policy Statement setting out the strategy for a multi-port approach to the provision of port facilities. As ORE will develop in phases on the east, south, south west and west coast, a multiple of ports will be required to provide facilities for the different activities at several locations around the country and at different times for the various phases of the fixed and floating ORE developments.

This will help maximise the economic benefits at regional as well as national level in terms of the creation of jobs and new SME enterprise that can support the development of the ORE industry. A multiport approach will ultimately allow investments that are commercially viable in the long-term progress without undermining the ability of any port to meet its primary obligations in relation to the facilitation of international trade.

While Irish Ports receive no exchequer funding, EU funding of port infrastructure for ORE is now available for ports, or terminals within ports, on the Trans European Network for Transport (TEN-T). On its own, CEF funding does not have any State aid implications and successful applicants can obtain significant grant funding of up to 50% of eligible costs for studies and up 30% of infrastructure works costs.

A call opened on in 2021 for applications and closed last January which makes €4bn funding available EU wide for transport infrastructure projects. Similar calls are expected in 2022 and 2023. These are competitive processes, and typically oversubscribed. Bearing in mind the confidential nature of the process, what can be said at this point is that a decision by the European Commission on the applications, which include four Irish applications related to ORE port infrastructure, is due shortly.