Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2025-11-12
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

I thank the Deputy for raising what is an existential issue facing humankind. I also welcome her mother, Madeline, and her good friends to the Chamber. I hope they have a very enjoyable day. I will also take this opportunity to wish President Connolly the very best of success in her role as President of Ireland, as we did yesterday.
I fully concur with the objective of addressing the issue of climate change. I have no issue with being overly critical. The last Government actually did engineer a step change in terms of the Government response to climate change. We provided a legislative template. That is very challenging and I do not doubt that. We also undertook a range of initiatives in areas such as offshore renewables, electric vehicles, retrofitting, better environmental practices in farming and utilising carbon tax revenue. We also put carbon tax into legislation and have utilised it to address fuel poverty, to help develop better sustainable farming methods for the farming community and for the retrofitting programme, which has been quite extensive.
To give an example, onshore wind energy provided 48% of Ireland's power last February. Last January, Ireland reached the important milestone of hitting 5 GW of installed onshore wind capacity. In 2023, Ireland was ranked second in the world for onshore wind generation. You will never hear the Opposition acknowledge that. It is as if we are doing nothing. Huge strides are being made. A revolution has happened in terms of onshore wind. The Deputy is correct that we need more new technologies and innovation but we are seen as one of the best in terms of integrating renewables into the grid. That is a good thing.
The next big step change has to be offshore wind generation. We are pushing as fast and as best we can. I will come back to that in a moment. I have established a clearing house. This means bringing industry in to meet with Government Departments in a committee structure to make sure we can remove barriers and accelerate the development of offshore wind in line with the designated maritime area plans, DMAPs, proper procedures and so forth.
Wastewater is very important in terms of a clean environment, water quality and so on, and yet a great many people are opposing wastewater treatment plants, including some from the environmental sector. It beggars belief when you think about it. The objective is to clean the water before it goes into our rivers and seas and yet there are interminable delays because of judicial reviews. That is a factor. I hope that when it comes to the offshore wind agenda, we do not see objections to it because it is vital to the climate change agenda in this country, emissions reductions and reducing reliance on imported fossil fuels, which is driving up costs and causing real challenges for us.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-11-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-11-12