Displaying items by tag: Poolbeg Y&BC Ringsend Dublin

30th October 2016

Lecture: The Road to Rio Paralympic Sailing

#Lecture - Glenua & Friends presents the lecture: The Road to Rio Paralympic Sailing

The talk by Dr. Austin O’Carroll takes place next Thursday 3 November at 20:00 in Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club Ringsend, Dublin. Entry €5 (in aid of Safetynet)

In 2013 Austin was offered the chance of a place with John Twomey and Ian Costelloe on the Irish Sailing Sonar team which was seeking to qualify for the Rio Paralympics.

In his illustrated talk, Austin will focus on how they forged a team together, followed by a hectic qualifying campaign and finally their experiences of the Paralympic Finals. While involved in this campaign, there was a huge influx of people into homelessness. This meant the medical charity Safetynet, founded by Austin, had to rapidly expand the range of services for homeless people. He will describe how they dealt with this crisis, while running the Paralympic campaign.

Austin’s journey to Rio began in Bere Island in 1982 with a Glenans sailing course. Undaunted by the physical challenges, he was a dinghy instructor by 1984. He is now a GP in Inner City Dublin with a deep interest in Health Inequalities.

In recognition of his work with marginalized groups, he was presented with the Irish Healthcare Person of the year 2015 award and granted an honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. He started eight specialized primary care services for homeless people and founded Safetynet, the umbrella organization for specialized-services for homeless people in Dublin and Cork.

Safetynet has been innovative in the delivery of healthcare to homeless people including rough sleepers; provision of substance misuse treatment to homeless people. He is also involved in a variety of educational programmes dealing in health inequality and disability.

Published in Coastal Notes

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Offshore wind

ESB know the importance of offshore wind in tackling climate change and delivering net zero. Ireland has a unique capability given its prime location to take advantage of the potential of offshore wind. ESB are working hard to develop offshore wind projects for the benefit of everyone across society in Ireland and the UK. This includes ongoing engagement with marine users and local communities so ESB can deliver these significant projects.

Offshore wind will play a major role globally in our fight against climate change. It will help to replace energy generated by burning fossil fuels with that from a clean, safe and secure renewable energy source. Ireland’s geographic location on the exposed edge of the Atlantic presents us with a significant opportunity to generate electricity from wind – both offshore and onshore.

Power from onshore wind farms currently provide over one-third of Ireland’s electricity needs. But, whilst its marine area is many times the size of its landmass, Ireland’s offshore wind potential is only starting to be realised. ESB have a coastline stretching over 3,000km but only one operational offshore wind farm – Arklow Bank, with a capacity of 25 MW. In contrast, Belgium’s coastline is only 63km long, but it has already developed more than 2,000 MW of offshore wind. In Great Britain, with a coastline four times the length of ours, offshore wind generation now equates to over 440 Arklow Banks, with an installed capacity of 11,0000 MW as of late 2021.

The Irish Government's target to install 5,000 MW of offshore wind capacity in our maritime area by 2030 is set out in the Climate Action Plan 2021. It also has the objective to source 80% of Ireland’s electricity needs from renewables by the same year. In line with this, ESB is applying its professional and proven engineering expertise to the challenges set within the Climate Action Plan.

ESB are committed to playing a strong role in developing Ireland’s offshore wind potential for the benefit of the people of Ireland. This will be done in consultation with marine users and local communities, and with due care for the marine environment.