The Minister for the Marine has given the go-ahead for the construction of a giant wind farm off the coast of County Wicklow. The €640m project will be located on a sandbank in the Irish Sea, about six miles off the County Wicklow coast.
The Arklow Bank wind farm will consist of 200 turbines generating over 500 megawatts of electricity. The construction phase is expected to generate over 500 jobs. eirtricity, the company behind the farm, has already spent €2.7m on the project. eirtricity is a joint venture between Future Wind Partnership and the National Toll Roads.
At the moment Ireland gets just 2% of its electricity from renewable means. The construction of the wind farm will by itself supply over 10% of the grid and reduce the emission of harmful CO² gases by over a million tonnes a year.
Minister Frank Fahey has also announced new controls on salmon fishing. At a meeting of the National Salmon Commission in Galway last night, he indicated the Government would not buy-out drift-net licences.
He told the meeting that the shortage of salmon stocks was not only due to drift-netting, and that there was a wider "marine survival problem". Mr Fahey made it clear that all those involved in the salmon fishing industry would have to suffer some restrictions to save stocks.
