Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent)

I thank the Minister of State for attending. I am somebody who obviously has an interest in this area. I come from Waterford, which along with Wexford is one of the counties that will be most impacted by this proposed wind development. I say at the start that I sold renewable energy. I am a fan of wind. We need it, and we certainly need offshore wind development. I was in Germany two years ago with a delegation and we met with members of the German parliament. Their need to develop hydrogen is real and there are obvious benefits to Ireland taking part and being able to supply the electricity for that hydrogen generation.

However, the discussion today is about this designated area of maritime planning, which the Government says it has arrived at through strategic analysis. I question that. I think most of the data used to arrive at the DMAP has come from two surveys carried out by individual players prior to this.

The Government surveys have only really started this year with the vessel Tom Crean being out since July looking at the areas in question. Yet, the Minister of State is saying there has been extensive ecological and habitat research taken on board. I would question that to be honest.

Further to that, one of the things that is most concerning to me in the context of the scale of this wind development infrastructure, whether people are aware of this or not, is that what has been proposed off the south coast will be the largest wind turbines anywhere in Europe at the moment. We are talking about 350 m pylons sunk probably 50 m or 60 m into the water. That means 290 m will be sticking out on a blade with a circumference of 100 m. It will be larger than anything else. In the DMAP presently proposed, some of those would be as close as 12 km to the Copper Coast shoreline, that is approximately six and a half miles. To understand that, standing on the promenade in Tramore looking out to Brownstown Head, is an area of about 3.5 miles direct line of sight. The top of the old signal towers there are 100 m to the water depth. What we are talking about is putting something twice as large out twice as far. People will be shocked at what that might look like. In terms of the consultation process, I do not believe that the players involved have really shown to people what the impact of these will be.

This raises questions as to why we are using and prescribing fixed bottom wind here when floating wind is coming up. I have spoken to people and players and everybody says floating wind is too far away. Floating wind is being developed in many other countries with commercial projects. The closest example that we have now is the Green Volt floating project, which will have 35 floating turbines generating up to 560 MW of electricity and they will be located 75 km off the coast of Aberdeenshire in Scotland. This will be powered up by 2029. What we are doing here is, we understand we are probably coming late to the party but we are also using the oldest technology, which is fixed bottom wind. Fixed bottom wind works fine in areas that are not areas of significance. However, I would argue that the south coast of Waterford and our Copper Coast is an area of very strategic significance to us. It is part of our tourism opportunity. I am worried about what the impact of this may be on that.

I have also raised in the past with some of the players involved some of the other contentions, such as this idea that we are going to have many thousands of jobs. I heard the Minister for the environment mention in the House one day that up to 50,000 jobs will be created. At the moment there are about seven wind farm projects being worked on off the east coast of England. The infrastructure requirement there is about 4,000 jobs presently, I was told. I am not therefore sure how all these jobs are going to come about. More importantly, we need the wind but we need also to be cognisant of the proximity to shore and, as other speakers have said, the impacts to our marine diversity.

Within the Tonn Nua, the range of that goes out to about 12 miles. The question is, the depth of water is critical, as the deeper the water, the more difficult it is to put these pylons in. Yet they are being done in other areas at up to 65 m and 70 m depths, yet we are prescribing areas with 40 m depths, which is going to put them too close to the shore.

Beyond that, I have a different question on some of the contracts pricing. The community wind dividend is based on the amount of wind generated, so there is no certainty as to where that will be and how that will roll out. Beyond that, we have put two strategic reserve funds into place recently in this House. The idea is for a rainy day fund for the future and a climate protection fund. Why do we not take the position to try to invest in some of this infrastructure from the get-go? Anybody who has been around this country for more than 30 years can probably remember what happened with offshore oil exploration and Kinsale gas and Corrib gas, where the State ultimately gave away the large majority of ownership to the private sector and we charged consumers into the future based on that. We are repeating that model now in terms of this wind infrastructure. Why would the State not do what they did in Scotland and step in, take an equity share in this, support the developers for sure, get on board and give some of the ownership and the long-term investment potential of this wind energy to the Irish State? We have shown no ambition whatsoever to do that.

I have great concerns about this and they have not been allayed by industry. There is a significant question yet as to the ability even of those who will bid for the licences that are going to come up in coming months to implement at the prices they will tender for. There is a significant danger we will award licences to offshore developers and they will tell the Irish State subsequently that they cannot provide the infrastructure but are so advanced that it would take years for someone else to do it. That will result in a different consumer price. It may certainly disadvantage our SME and manufacturing sectors that are trying to compete for energy based on export potential.

I see where the Government is going. I see lots of deficits. I will wait to see and hear more on what this proposal is.

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