This will be a very serious weekend for the world, as eyes turn to COP26 in anticipation of what the outcome will be. Our former President, Mary Robinson, made an emotional appeal to world leaders yesterday for more ambitious action to be taken. She is right; we cannot negotiate with science or facts. This is on our watch. If we do not radically act to reduce our carbon emissions, temperatures will rise by more than 1.5°C. I want to see a better future for my children, Aoibhe and Senan. I am sure the Minister wants the same for his children. I want them to have a healthy planet to grow up on. I also want a prosperous Ireland for them that can continue to attract jobs and inward investment.

Climate change is real; we know that. However, I am seriously concerned about our energy security and the delays in delivery. I have been raising the issue week after week in the House. We are not acting fast enough to decarbonise. I believe we are losing inward investment and world-leading companies, potentially. Developers of offshore wind are continually frustrated by delays. We will have to resort to the use of emergency gas generators in the years ahead. Most offshore wind developments remain a pipe dream until 2023, when the new maritime area regulatory authority, MARA, will be up and running. It is said that most of those projects will not come online until 2028, which will be too late to help with emission reductions and meeting our target 5 GW of offshore wind by 2030. Serious questions are also being asked about our grid infrastructure, regulatory and planning processes and why we find ourselves at risk of blackouts. Personally, I must say that I am at a crossroads as regards my confidence in the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, and EirGrid. Moneypoint, which is located close to where I live, was to become a base for renewable energy and green hydrogen. Instead, it is back to burning coal. Equinor has pulled out of the €2 billion offshore floating wind farm development that would have powered 1.5 million homes. It is embarrassing.

I had the honour of representing Ireland at the Paris Agreement talks. I know how important the issue of climate change is. It is a challenge but it is also an opportunity. Ardnacrusha was built and we were at the forefront in relation to our foresight of where we needed to go as regards renewables. We are now at a very difficult crossroads. Ireland is reportedly one of three possible countries on a shortlist for the development of a major Intel plant. We are all aware of it. It is very important. A number of other projects, industries, businesses and companies are also potentially coming to Ireland. However, we are facing reputational damage. What efforts is the Government making at COP26 to deliver a meaningful deal that will change this for us on the ground? Has the Government got some tactics or strategies to look at fast-tracking renewable energy projects, especially offshore wind and solar? Critically, is foreign and direct investment at risk because of the lack of generating capacity and grid infrastructure?

I thank the Deputy for raising the question. I know that given his previous experience as a Minister, the issue is something that he knows a lot about. I was in Glasgow yesterday with the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, who, people should be glad to hear, has been drawn into serious negotiations on issues such as climate finance and so on, in terms of trying to get general agreement, which I think is a recognition of where Ireland stands now in the challenge of climate action debate. Of course, former President Mary Robinson spoke passionately yesterday, which made a big impression and drew big crowds in the COP26 campus in Glasgow. I shared the stage with her at a number of events and I can tell the Deputy that the crowds were there for her.

We are a credible voice in this space now, but we have to deliver on that. The ambition that we have in this country around a renewable energy revolution in many ways, in terms of the scale of what we need to do between now and 2030, is going to be hugely demanding of the Government in terms of licensing systems, certainty, grid management and investment and indeed, bringing new technologies on stream, in particular around hydrogen, by the end of this decade. We are planning supply increases, including 5 GW of offshore wind, an extra 1.3 GW onshore, 1 GW from solar power, around 0.5 GW from microgeneration, which we have been talking about for years but have not managed to deliver, but I think we will, 1.45 GW from batteries and another 2 GW from conventional power sources, predominantly gas-fired power stations. We have got to do all of that in the space of less than ten years, and as I said, we have to provide the investment environment for it to be done, because predominantly, it is all about private sector investment. That is a huge challenge, particularly on the offshore side, where we are finalising legislation, as well as a marine spatial planning plan, and putting certainty around licensing and auctions in place for offshore wind developers, in respect of both fixed and floating platforms, to deliver on that enormous potential not just on the east coast, but also on the south and west coasts.

The challenge in the short term, of course, is one of certainty of supply. The CRU has been challenged in recent weeks and months, as we know, and as the Deputy has raised in this House. The fact that the Huntstown and Whitegate gas-fired power stations were both offline for a number of months has contributed to those challenges. Huntstown is now back online and Whitegate will be online before the end of this month, which will make life a bit easier. It is a difficult management exercise while we bring the substantial renewables that we are planning for onto the system.

We should never have got to the point where Huntstown and Whitegate were down at this critical juncture. The Minister knows that, in fairness. He did not answer the question I asked. Are we potentially losing inward investment?

I have huge time for IDA Ireland. Mr. Martin Shanahan has done a superb job at IDA Ireland. He has warned, in submissions to the CRU, EirGrid and others, that attracting inward investment is now at huge risk because of the situation we have as regards the grid and access to it. As I could have done, the Minister listed off a whole range of potential renewables that we have to have in place in ten years. What has happened for the last number of years to plan for the investors that are looking at coming in now? I have referenced one of them already. Are we losing investment because of a lack of foresight over the last few years in order to ensure that we have energy security?

It is a simple question.

No, I do not think we are but we are at risk of losing investment if we cannot provide the assurances that investors need. If we look at the investment flow that has come in over recent years, through IDA Ireland work predominantly and elsewhere, it has been a very strong pipeline of investment. The strength of foreign direct investment here and its expansion have been hugely helpful through the Covid period. The Deputy is right. There are two challenges here. In my view we will lose investment if we do not decarbonise our electricity grid over time because I believe major multinationals will demand electricity grids that prioritise renewables in the future, with regard to their own corporate governance demands on the shift to renewables and away from a carbon-based society. The other challenge is that they will demand energy security. They will demand consistency of supply, whether it is a data centre that uses huge amounts of power or something else. We have to do both. This is the challenge.