Renewable Energy Generation
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-28
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

-----they indicated that there were difficulties of a technical nature which could delay the project somewhat. There was not a single planning objection to the interconnector because of the work that Eirgrid did in terms of meeting with communities and so forth. We will get an update in respect of the matter in order that we are all fully and properly informed in relation to it. I take the Deputy's point.
The other issue on offshore wind will be the supply chain I mentioned. That is what we are testing. We are asking the private sector what its sense of that is, and we have discussed the matter with Prime Minister Starmer. There is a lot happening on the British side. We are assessing whether we can have complementarity on supply chains so that not everybody is chasing the same supplies and creating inflationary impacts and so on.
Deputy O'Rourke also mentioned the clearing house. It is properly resourced, and the feedback has been both good and positive. I outlined earlier who is on it and who attends its meetings. As a result of that, there is renewed confidence now. I am hearing from industry that there is a real sense of confidence, because of the clearing house, that the Government is really driving this and trying to remove the barriers and roadblocks.
In response to Deputy Heneghan, I have spoken to the Minister about plug-in solar. He is aware of the Deputy's interest in this and is very committed to it as well. The grid will be future-proofed. There is massive investment going into Eirgrid. Some €18 billion is being put in to make sure that it is ready for offshore wind.
In reply to Deputy Hayes, there is urgency. He said there is no urgency, but there is. There is a huge desire to get this done.
On the public ownership model, there are huge risks with such a model in terms of expertise, knowledge, know-how and all the rest of it. We might not have offshore wind for the next 20 years. We need to tease this out. That is the reality.
There is enormous risk to the Exchequer in terms of such a model.

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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/2026-04-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:52+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-28