Wind energy sector can learn from British experience, ambassador tells Cork business leaders

Ambassador Paul Johnston meets business stakeholders at event in Cork

Sat, 12 Apr, 2025 - 01:31

Ireland’s plans to develop offshore wind energy can benefit from the UK experience in the sector, Britain’s ambassador to Ireland has told industry leaders in Cork.

Ambassador Paul Johnston met stakeholders from Ireland and the UK, including ESB and Gas Networks Ireland, at a special renewable energy roundtable event on Friday. The discussions looked to highlight how regional connections can drive progress on shared climate and economic goals.

Ireland’s Climate Action Plan has set a target of 5GW of offshore renewable energy to be deployed by 2030, with a further 2GW to be in development by 2030 for non-grid uses. The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund is committed to investing €88.5m in 2024 for the Port of Cork to develop critical infrastructure at the port for offshore wind.

The UK’s £6bn (€6.92bn) offshore wind energy sector employs more than 8,000 people and is expected to reach capacity of 41.5GW by 2030, including 1.2GW of floating wind capacity.

“More than 10 years ago, we were already building quite big offshore wind plants off the east coast of England and off the Scottish coast,” Mr Johnston told the Irish Examiner. “We've a lot of expertise in the wind energy construction, integration, and supply chains.

“There's lessons from how we did our sort of pricing structure to encourage companies to come into the market; the range of new technologies we develop, and connections to the grid. We think getting the experts together, both on the government side and on the business side, will be a good way for Ireland to pick up on our experience, and hopefully to take forward its own planning.

“We've already got a couple of agreements between the two governments on renewable energy, and we want to upgrade those, but also to build the business relationship."

Bilateral trade between the islands now exceeds €100bn, and Mr Johnston said business has benefitted from a more positive political environment. At the British-Irish summit in Liverpool, €185m of Irish investment in the UK was announced. "Clearly, over the last year, we've seen a big step forward in the British-Irish relationship. The prime minister (Keir Starmer) has met the Taoiseach three or four times for substantive meetings. That stronger political climate helps the business environment."

The British Embassy in Ireland, in partnership with Cork Chamber of Commerce, hosted a special networking reception at the River Lee Hotel in Cork city on Thursday to take stock of progress following last month's inaugural Ireland-UK Summit.

Cork Chamber president Rob Horgan emphasised the importance of the regions in Irish-British relations and in doing so invited the Government of Ireland to follow the precedent of hosting the Irish-British Summit in regional cities. “It did not go unnoticed that the UK-Ireland Summit was held in Liverpool, a city with deep Irish roots and, like Cork, a proud regional identity. For this renewed relationship to truly flourish, it must go beyond Dublin and London," said Mr Horgan.

“We would welcome the opportunity to host the next Ireland-UK Summit here in Cork. It would be a fitting recognition of the critical role that regional cities and communities play in building a prosperous, resilient and forward-looking partnership between our two nations."

Mr Johnson said the link between the UK and Ireland is "much more than the relationship between London and Dublin.

"I remember being over in Galway, and they have quite a strong audio visual sector, including obviously TG4. We connected them with the North East of England, where they have quite an impressive regional TV and media hub. So there's all these things that you can do to sort of make connections from a business point of view. Ultimately, it's for it's for businesses itself to make the investment decisions. The government can't sort of do that for them, but we can act as sort of, you know, matchmakers.

"We wouldn't necessarily look at Cork in connection with one particular region. For the offshore wind sector, the Scottish government was down here on a business mission a few weeks ago, because off the east coast of Scotland there's a lot of offshore wind activity and development. But it's very much sector specific. If we spot a particular opportunity, then we'll put people in Cork in touch with the relevant counterparts in the in the UK."

The sun shone on Leeside during Mr Johnstone’s visit to Leeside, and the political environment around UK and Irish relations has also warmed up considerably since he began the role in September 2020, a post-Covid environment where the post-Brexit environment remained in flux. Now approaching the end of his five-year station in Ireland, Mr Johnston is able to look favourably on the state of bilateral relations.

“I arrived at quite a difficult time for the bilateral relationship, when there was quite a big row brewing between us over the Northern Ireland protocol, and the post Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland. There was also a row emerging over the government's approach to the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. With the Windsor Framework, we addressed the issues over the Northern Ireland protocol, and the Irish government was supportive on helping us get to that position. The new British government has been working very closely with the Irish government over the last, nine or 10 months now, on this issue of the legacy of the Troubles, to try and get towards a more sort of settled position. So on those two issues, I think I've tried to make a contribution to getting into a better place.”

Mr Johnson plans to return to Cork before his term ends in September, both for professional an personal reasons. “Celtic was my team growing up in Scotland, and they are coming to play in Cork in July, so finger crossed I’ll have the chance to come back for that.

“I want to continue to build on the success of the UK Ireland Summit. I think I've done so much in the in the four and a bit years I've been here, that it's really just sort of trying to squeeze every last experience in the in the remaining months in the job.”