Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-15
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

I covered a lot of people. I am sorry but I did not cover Deputy Hayes’s point about renewable energy. We did actually discuss that with President Xi. They are very conscious of our offshore wind exploration and that we are putting a lot of focus into the offshore and onshore aspects. China manufactures wind turbines at an extraordinary rate. It more or less commands the global market in solar panels.
If we can get good multilateral relationships, there will be a benefit. There was a time when people felt we would not have enough supply and the supply chains would not be strong or resilient enough to deal with everybody going after offshore energy at the one time. China actually offers a bit of a solution to that, I think. Some in Europe are negative about that, but I think it does do because it manufactures a sufficiency of material for windmills and solar equipment that can help us make the energy transition.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-15