The devastating invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin’s forces has focused minds on reducing energy dependence on Russia, with Ireland Inc gearing up to be the “Saudi Arabia” of offshore renewable.

However, the Government’s delay in setting up a liaison forum between the offshore renewable industry and a major stakeholder, the fishing industry, has opened it up to claims that it has set the two sectors on an avoidable “collision course”.

Fishing industry leader John Lynch and south-east vessel owner Caitlin Uí Aodha, who was the first female skipper to secure a BIM boatbuilding grant some decades ago, both voiced their concerns about this at a recent conference hosted by Simply Blue Energy at the National Maritime College of Ireland in Cork.

Apart from the impact on fishing grounds, there are also concerns about unknown environmental effects - a recent study found that the migratory path of brown crabs may be shifted irreversibly by the geomagnetic fields coming from turbine cables.

“We want to be green – but we simply don’t know enough,” Uí Aodha has said in an interview with Wavelengths below