David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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109. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment how his Department is supporting and encouraging the development of floating offshore wind power generation; his future plans for the development of floating offshore wind power generation nationally; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19861/23]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The 2020 Programme for Government committed to a target of 5GW of installed offshore wind capacity in Ireland’s maritime area by 2030 and made a commitment to develop at least 30GW floating wind beyond 2030.

In addition, in 2022, the Government agreed to target the delivery of an additional 2GW of offshore wind for the production of green hydrogen in order to create the necessary environment to develop a floating energy and hydrogen industry.

The Government is delivering our climate and energy ambitions for offshore wind energy through a number of simultaneous phases. The first and second of these phases focus on 2030 deliverability while development is also underway for a post-2030 future framework for offshore wind which is expected to feature floating offshore wind. A key building block of this policy, the spatial strategy known as the draft Offshore Renewable Energy Development Plan II (OREDPII) completed consultation stage last week. The OREDP II sets out how we will go about identifying the best locations for renewable energy technologies. This includes the potential for floating wind energy in our deeper waters. The maritime area is a shared space and so identification of these areas will be carried out in consultation with all maritime stakeholders.

Other elements of the future framework policy are also underway, including a hydrogen policy and a new interconnection policy. These elements and others will be brought together to form a draft future framework policy which will be published for consultation by my Department by the end of this year.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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110. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he intends to expand the Offshore Wind Delivery Taskforce to bring ports, the ORE industry and State agencies together to improve readiness to deliver offshore wind, including through the possible introduction of an Irish strategic port investment model; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19964/23]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I established the inter-Departmental, inter-agency Offshore Wind Delivery Taskforce to accelerate delivery and capture the wider and longer term economic opportunities associated with the development of offshore wind in Ireland. Its membership comprises senior officials from the Government Departments and agencies that are vital to the delivery of Ireland’s ORE ambitions.

This includes the Department of Transport, which owns a workstream under the Taskforce dedicated to the facilitation of offshore wind by commercial ports. The offshore industry, the Ports Co-Ordination Group and Irish Maritime Development Office are key stakeholders of this workstream.

Key actions for 2023 for the ports workstream, which is led by the Department of Transport, include:

• assessing the minimum Irish port capacity and deliverability regarding deployment and Operations & Maintenance required to achieve 2030 targets; and
• exploring the availability of funding streams to support the delivery of OWE port projects.