Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I listened with interest to the Minister of State's presentation this morning. I am slightly bemused by the commitment in the programme for Government and the lack of action on it to develop offshore energy. Obviously, a large amount of the renewable energy we are purchasing from Denmark is offshore energy. Perhaps, people have had the opportunity to see television documentaries on it or see them in person. One can even see huge amount of offshore energy as one arrives in Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup.

I ask the Minister of State to forgive my ignorance, but I am not aware of any similar offshore energy projects in Ireland, nor am I aware of any particular projects that the Government is advancing. I am aware of Moneypoint power station in Clare, which is beside the sea. I received a response to a parliamentary question a couple of weeks ago and since then, the Government has announced that the lifespan of the power station is to be further curtailed and I do not see any plan to replace it. It needs to be replaced for the economies of Clare and Ireland but with what are we going to replace it? Moneypoint is situated on the coast, on the Shannon Estuary. It has two large networks that leave it and cross the country in arcs, one going to the north of Dublin and the other to the south of Dublin. It is, essentially, irreplaceable in terms of the national network. I would have expected a greater degree of urgency than has been seen to date to develop offshore energy and to research tidal and wave energy. The estuary is a relatively shallow basin and has some of the highest waves and tides in Europe, along with the Bristol Channel. I am not an expert in engineering, but I would like to see State-sponsored research into that as a matter of urgency and not something that comes up as a footnote in a debate around Ireland not fulfilling its renewable energy commitments.

I would welcome something real coming out of this morning's debate. I accept the Government finds itself in the position it does, that we are not meeting the renewable energy targets and must do something about it in the short term. However, if we continue the way we are going now, we are going to be back here in ten years' time with exactly the same story. I want a task force to be set up to look at the reality that renewable energy is going to have to come out of Moneypoint. It has to be a part of the story. The Government is not going to be able to build a pylon network of the sort that is traversing the country, coming from Moneypoint. We all know the pylon difficulties across the country. There are pylons there. Moneypoint is situated right on the coast. That is an advantage that the Government needs to take cognisance of and move forward with a degree of urgency that I have not seen to date.

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