Renewable Energy Generation
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-24
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Alan Dillon (FG), Mayo

The Government is committed to increasing support for offshore wind infrastructure in coastal communities. This is being done in ongoing consultation with all stakeholders in the development of offshore wind energy generation. This includes our local coastal communities and our valued fishing sector, which the Department recognises as crucial to the enduring success of offshore wind energy.
The Department is committed to ongoing engagement with the fisheries sector under Ireland’s plan-led approach to offshore renewable energy, ORE, development. The seafood and offshore renewable energy working group provides a forum to facilitate constructive engagement on the interaction between the seafood and ORE industries.
In September 2025, the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, and my fellow Minister of State, Deputy Dooley, announced the publication of the proposal and accompanying public participation statement for the national designated maritime area plan, DMAP, for ORE. The proposal outlines the Government’s commitment to extensive and inclusive consultation with the public and stakeholders throughout the process. In recognition of the importance of coastal communities in the national DMAP process, a dedicated community liaison service has been contracted, with the sole focus of working with and providing information directly to coastal communities.
Furthermore, all offshore wind generation development projects under the offshore renewable energy support scheme, ORESS, are required to make contributions to their community benefit funds. The community benefit fund will be professionally managed on behalf of the local community, and a local community benefit fund committee will have full responsibility for its funding decisions.
Given the anticipated high level of offshore generation, the amounts involved will be substantial and transformative for communities. It is estimated that these will comprise approximately €25 million per annum from the 3.1 GW of capacity contracted under phase 1 of ORESS.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-24