The idea that offshore wind farms should be designated critical infrastructure seems a bit of a no-brainer. It is hard to think of anything much more critical in the current moment than ensuring Ireland has its own source of energy.
The Minister for Public Expenditure and Infrastructure, Jack Chambers, flew a kite last week when he appeared before the Oireachtas Select Committee on Infrastructure and National Development Plan Delivery. He someway coyly told the committee that he had been asked by “colleagues” to examine the proposal and then proceeded to position himself firmly on the fence.
Designating offshore wind farms under the critical infrastructure legislation – which is expected to be passed by the Oireachtas before the summer – would oblige public bodies to smooth the path of offshore wind farm projects in so far as their statutory powers allow. It also releases the State bodies from parts of the Climate Act, which requires them to ensure their decisions are consistent with the Climate Action Plan.
What this would mean in practice is that the wind projects already in the system would make their way through the planning system more expeditiously. And that is meaningful.
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Five of these projects – Codling Wind Park, Dublin Array, North Irish Sea Array, Oriel Wind Farm and Arklow Bank Wind – have applied for planning since 2024. All are delayed in the system for up to a year for procedural or technical reasons. No decisions have yet been made and requests for additional information are being fulfilled. The first decisions are expected at the end of the year
Another project, Tonn Nua off Waterford, has yet to apply for planning and three more are proposed off the south coast. One project, the Sceirdre Rocks Offshore Wind farm off the coast of Galway, has been effectively abandoned by its promoter on the basis that it was not technically or commercially viable.
The total capacity of the projects currently caught up in planning is 4.7 gigawatts (GW), which is well ahead of average daily demand of 3.6GW and more than two-thirds of the winter peak demand of close to 6GW.
The Government – in the Climate Action Plan – targeted 5GW from offshore wind by 2030 but this seems increasingly unrealistic as things stand.
Leaving aside the economic arguments for designating the farms as critical infrastructure it would have a significant political upside. It would be a riposte to the growing numbers of commentators, billionaires and others who bemoan the inability of the Government, and by extension Ireland, to get things done
Designation would now allow An Coimisiún Pleanálá (ACP) to prioritise the wind farm projects. But even so resources at the planning authority would remain a constraint.
Arguably the biggest benefit of critical infrastructure status would be to narrow the grounds and shorten the window for objectors to seek a judicial review once planning permission is obtained.
The presumption of a judicial review is already baked into the timelines for the projects and one of the most common grounds for seeking a review in these situations – whether or not ACP met its obligations under the Climate Act – will be significantly narrowed by the new legislation.
The critical infrastructure designation would also allow and require prioritisation of the wind farm projects by EirGrid – which must connect them to the grid – and other State bodies such as county councils and harbour companies.
The cherry on top – although it is difficult to quantify – is the impact that greater certainty around timelines and outcomes would have on the financing of these projects, which runs into the billions.
Leaving aside the economic arguments for designating the farms as critical infrastructure it would have a significant political upside. It would be a riposte to the growing numbers of commentators, billionaires and others who bemoan the inability of the Government, and by extension Ireland, to get things done.
It is all a bit overdone. Delays, overspending and lack of political focus are not uniquely Irish vices. The argument does tend to ignore the very big things we did – on corporation tax, and investing in education – that have put us in the place where we can now beat ourselves up about second-order problems. Perhaps these critics should get out more or ask their parents about Ireland in early 1980s.
But no Government that aims to get re-elected can sit on its laurels, and rightly or wrongly the narrative that we are not good and getting big projects done has taken hold. Chambers has been presented with an opportunity to counter this narrative, and there is the added bonus that it might actually work.
The Minister’s decision to test the waters by teasing the idea with backbenchers on the infrastructure committee also reflects political reality. Having failed to see the fuel protests coming, the Government is wary of stirring up the hornets’ nest of rural discontent any further.
Despite being a source of potentially cheaper energy, wind farms are a perfect outlet for the sort of nihilistic and atavistic anger on display during the fuel protests, which continues to lurk just below the surface. The paradox is obvious but cannot be ignored.
