GREEN CLARE ‘Most economical source of energy is off Clare coast,’ claims professor

by Páraic McMahon paraic@clareecho.ie

POTENTIAL for off-shore development off the coast of the Shannon Estuary is “phenomenal”.

Professor Eamon Murphy addressed elected members of Clare County Council on Monday examining this potential. The Chair of the Mid-West Regional Enterprise Plan is one of the members of the Shannon Estuary Economic Taskforce.

Recommendations from this taskforce will be launched at an event in Ardnacrusha by An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar (FG) in the coming weeks.

Beginning his presentation, he referred to a quote from WB Yeats’ poem ‘The Song of Wandering Aengus’, “And pluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun” in explaining the “real gold apples that can be plucked from the ocean day and night”.

He stated, “We have a strong grid connection and wind speed is very important, off the coast of Clare is the most economical source of energy”. Prof Murphy added, “the level of potential off that coast is phenomenal”.

Cable lines leading from Loop Head are connection points sought by Russia and the US, Murphy remarked. “Five times our physical territorial zone is our economic zone,” he highlighted to show the increased playing field at the country’s finger tips in the sector of offshore renewable energy.

The Shannon Estuary can serve as “a testbed for global innovation founded on renewable energy,” he outlined. It can also act as “a catalyst for high-value add jobs which is what we must focus on, for too much of my lifetime we exported cattle, our fundamental product as a commodity, it was true of fish and sadly it is true of our people, we exported our top product”.

Praise of the contributions of the late, Dr Brendan O’Regan to the Mid-West region was also voiced by Prof Murphy. “His model did the Free Zone, Shannon Town, Bunratty Castle, the Duty Free, Irish Coffee, one man on his own revolutionised the airport, he made it a golden apple, we should be calling this valley the Brendan O’Regan Corridor”.

Compiling an economic, environmental and spatial master plan for the Shannon Estuary needs to be a focus, he said while praising the Council’s idea for a Data Centre in Ennis as “absolutely brilliant”. Murphy added, “need a master spatial plan for the estuary, we need to show the Apples of this world here is the data and energy and the spaces designated for you. Clare has a very important role to play”.

Chief Executive of Clare County Council, Pat Dowling who also sits on the Taskforce called Prof Murphy “a man I have huge respect for with his leadership and guidance”.

Venture capitalists in New York City have expressed an interest in the deepwater off the Clare coast, Cllr PJ Ryan (IND) commented, “they had endless funds to put into projects off Clare coast, it went on and on and everything happened. Rome wasn’t built in a day, it will take time to get it off the ground”.

Criticism over the country’s use of resources was voiced by Cllr Cillian Murphy (FF).

“As a country, we have given away almost all of the excess to existing resources, we’ve done that in my own view wrongly, I have a huge concern that is what coming down the track nationally with offshore wind we will give away”. He referenced how the Norwegian Government have insisted on taking shares in every single offshore development, “we should be taking a share in every single one of those, we’re effectively giving away the right to use public land. West Clare is one of the most disadvantaged communities in the county, it’s clear to see from all the stats, if the jobs are to be delivered locally, we are very constricted in our County Development Plan in light of what is potentially coming down the track”.

In response, Prof Murphy recalled the socialist revolution across Europe in the 1930s, “the church took an awful hammering in Spain and Italy, there was a terror that there would be the same here, the simplest way to stop it is by private property, our problem is we give too much right to the individual over the common good, we need a constitutional amendment to redress that imbalance and place the common good on par, that would solve your spatial problem and a lot of the planning problems we have, I worry slightly, whoever wins next election will not solve the housing problem until that is dealt with”. He said he was “an absolute believer” in the Norwegian model which has successfully created small companies.

Local and regional benefit was mentioned by Cllr Joe Garrihy (FG) which prompted Prof Murphy to interrupt, “We’re playing on a European stage here, we’re not going tolerate local rivalries”.

“This is a total new scenario that would never have been envisaged before, it is an eye opener and there is great hope for the future,” Cllr Pat McMahon (FF) stated.