Legacy marine data and rights to publish legacy marine data to include all of Ireland 2026

The next phase of the State’s multi-phase approach to offshore wind delivery has seen a move to a plan-led model that will ensure ORE development and deployment is managed in a planned, strategic, and sustainable way, and enable a balanced equilibrium between achieving ORE objectives, while maintaining environmental protection, the economic well-being of local communities, and consideration of other activities taking place in our shared marine space. In turn, this will provide greater certainty for all maritime users as to where development will be situated. An important step in advancing Phase Two will be the use of forward spatial planning, and specifically the requirement to establish Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Designated Areas that will take place according to legislative provisions for Designated Maritime Area Plans (DMAPs) within the Maritime Area Planning (MAP) Act, 2021.

This forward spatial planning will take an ecosystem-based approach, in line with EU and national policy, and will inter alia help to guide future investment and decision-making. The National DMAP will provide a spatial planning policy framework for offshore renewable energy deployment around Ireland’s coastline. The development and implementation of the National DMAP is currently underway.

It will aim to designate sufficient maritime area to deliver Ireland’s ambition of having 20 GW of offshore renewable energy by 2040. Commencing with the South Coast DMAP, the State is undertaking comprehensive surveying activities through our partners in the Marine Institute (MI) and Geological Survey Ireland (GSI) or private surveyors as required to facilitate potential future offshore renewable energy development. This is taking place through a comprehensive programme of survey activity within the geographical area of each DMAP proposed and/or marine areas identified for offshore wind development within the future DMAPs, and/or marine areas identified for offshore wind development within the final DMAPs approved by the Oireachtas.

In addition to the above anticipated programme of survey work, DCEE is seeking to supplement our own existing marine data with existing, high-quality, and unprocessed datasets which have been collected in recent years by private industry. This framework will focus on an all of Ireland approach (Irish Sea, Celtic Sea and Atlantic Ocean) and to potentially focus on other future DMAP areas as required. The maximum number of tenderers that can be placed on the Framework is twenty.