Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

151.To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to provide a breakdown of the amount of his Department’s pre-committed capital expenditure under the National Development Plan that will be dedicated to the development of port infrastructure to facilitate Ireland’s future offshore renewable energy sector in each of the years 2024 to 2030, in tabular form. [25191/24]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Department is committed to facilitating commercial Irish State ports under the Department’s remit as positive contributors to the offshore renewable energy industry to support Ireland in meeting its ambitious targets of 5GW of installed offshore wind capacity by 2030, with a further 2GW in development for the production of green hydrogen and other non-grid uses. Supporting the development of port infrastructure is a core objective of the National Offshore Wind Delivery Taskforce and the Department is working very closely with the Taskforce in this regard.

Government policy on commercial state ports is that they operate on a self-funding basis. Under current policy, ports receive no exchequer funding and must fund their infrastructure developments for Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) infrastructure or otherwise through their own revenues, borrowings, EU grant funding, or private sector involvement. Therefore, there is no pre-committed capital expenditure under the National Development Plan that will be dedicated to the development of port infrastructure to facilitate Ireland’s future offshore renewable energy sector in each of the years 2024 to 2030

Notwithstanding this, the dedicated ORE Ports Facilitation Division in the Department of Transport is committed supporting the development of port infrastructure to maximise the use of Irish Commercial State ports for offshore wind delivery. Separately, the ongoing review of the National Ports Policy will consider ways to support the development of this essential port infrastructure in line with the Government’s climate and energy goals.

Officials in the Department of Transport continue to engage with all industry stakeholders with a view to maximising all financing opportunities available to Irish Commercial State ports. This includes potential financing partners such as the European Union (EU) through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) fund, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) and the European Investment Bank (EIB).

This can be evidenced by the assistance given to ports that applied for funding under the 2023 call for the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) fund to develop infrastructure to facilitate offshore wind projects. Officials in the Department of Transport provided critical feedback and guidance on the CEF applications. If successful, ports can obtain up to 30% of costs for infrastructure or up to 50% of costs for studies. The results of the funding call are expected in July of 2024.

Furthermore, the Department of Transport has signed an Advisory Assignment with the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the EIB's work undertaking analysis on demand, capacity, and financing options relating to Irish ports’ ORE plans has commenced. Part of the advisory work includes carrying out case studies on a number of proposed ORE port projects. The output of this work will be significant in identifying how Irish ports will contribute to the meeting of our 2030 offshore wind targets.

An ORE Ports Co-Ordination Group has also been established by the Department to facilitate consistent engagement with key stakeholders on ports’ progress with their ORE projects. The group meets on a quarterly basis and not only allows for ports to engage directly with the department, but other key government departments relevant to the delivery of ORE.