Paul Murphy: Why Ireland Needs Public Offshore Wind Now
Paul Murphy challenges the government record on offshore wind and argues the cost of living crisis makes rapid transition to 100% renewables urgent. He accuses Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael of two decades of failure and calls for a public ownership model to secure energy and cut emissions.
Paul Murphy says Ireland has less offshore wind today than 20 years ago despite repeated warnings about the climate and rising energy costs. He blames successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments for relying on private markets instead of developing publicly owned, large-scale energy projects.
He argues the current reliance on private developers means Ireland cannot control its energy future: we cannot control what we do not own. The exchange in the Dáil includes objections about taxpayer risk and public capacity, which Murphy confronts while pressing for a change of course.
Murphy frames the debate as immediate and practical: the cost of living squeeze increases the urgency of adding offshore wind to the grid and deciding whether to pursue a public model. The clip captures a pointed parliamentary exchange about how Ireland builds and owns its energy infrastructure.
Failure to deliver offshore wind
Paul Murphy says Ireland has less offshore wind today than 20 years ago despite repeated warnings about the climate and rising energy costs. He blames successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments for relying on private markets instead of developing publicly owned, large-scale energy projects.
Risks of the private model
He argues the current reliance on private developers means Ireland cannot control its energy future: we cannot control what we do not own. The exchange in the Dáil includes objections about taxpayer risk and public capacity, which Murphy confronts while pressing for a change of course.
Political consequences
Murphy frames the debate as immediate and practical: the cost of living squeeze increases the urgency of adding offshore wind to the grid and deciding whether to pursue a public model. The clip captures a pointed parliamentary exchange about how Ireland builds and owns its energy infrastructure.
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Transcript
The new cost of living crisis underlines the need to get to 100% renewable as quick as possible. For Ireland that obviously means developing offshore wind. But it's quite incredible that for the last 20 years, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have successively been in power and have failed to add any offshore wind to the grid. We have less offshore wind today than we did 20 years ago, despite all the talk of climate crisis and so on. Why? Because you're relying on the private market, ignoring the lessons of our own history that large-scale energy projects should be publicly owned. It's actually a point Minister Chambers made in his Budget speech, praising the role of a fledgling state in building Ardna Crosse. We had 80% of our electricity from renewable energy at that point. We had energy security. We had near zero emissions in terms of our electricity system. And we threw that all away to become 80% dependent on fossil fuels. We can't control what we don't own. Will you change course and switch to a public model? Deputy Cummins. Deputy Murphy. I don't accept that that model would work at all. I think there'd be huge risk on the taxpayer. And there's issues around capacity of the public service to do it and so on like that. And I think right now, we're on a trajectory where we will have offshore wind developed. And we have built up the planning capacity, Mara's capacity to set up new agencies and so on to deal with this. Thank you. Time's up. In terms of the...