DURING A SPEECH in the Dáil, accusing the government of not taking climate change seriously enough, Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns said that Ireland was producing more wind energy 20 years ago than it does now.

The Claim

While berating the government for a lack of progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Cairns said in the Dáil that the government did not seem to understand the consequences of not reaching climate targets. 

“You’re talking about the huge amount of work on offshore wind,” Cairns says.

“The reality is that we had more energy generated from wind 20 years ago.”

Her full comments can be read here.

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A clip of Cairns’s speech was also shared to both her own and the Social Democrats’ social media pages, with a description that includes the line: “Incredibly, we are producing less wind energy now than we were 20 years ago.”

Is this true?

The Evidence 

Figures provided to The Journal from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) show that in 2004, only 0.66 TWh of wind energy was generated, accounting for 2.4% of the electricity generated in Ireland.

A TWh is one trillion watt-hours — or a billion times more energy than the familiar KWh that appears in domestic electricity bills.

Most Irish homes use somewhere in the region of 4,500KWh a year, which means that one TWh could power about a quarter of a million homes in a year.

By 2024, wind energy production had risen to 11.65 TWh, making up 32.1% of the electricity used in Ireland.

And although figures from 2025 are still preliminary, they are consistent with last year, showing that 5.8TWh was produced in the first half of 2025, accounting for about a third of Ireland’s electricity needs.

So, in short, we are producing many times more wind energy now than we did 20 years ago.

However, a spokesperson for the Social Democrats said in an email that Cairns’s claim was not about wind generation in general, but specifically about power generated by wind turbines in the ocean.

“Holly was referring to offshore wind,” the email read, adding that Ireland used to be a world leader when it comes to offshore wind but is now a laggard.

So, if we just look at offshore wind generation, is this now lower than it was twenty years ago?

The Arklow bank Wind Farm was officially opened in 2005, with a capacity to generate 25.2 MW (A MW is a million watts).

Eirgrid, the state-owned electric power transmission operator, told The Journal that they could not provide any data from a single wind farm “for commercial reasons.” However, that is not an obstacle to confirming the claim.

Although the windfarm was unlikely to be generating at maximum capacity for much of the time, information provided by the developers of the wind farm estimated that, on average, it was expected to provide enough electricity to 16,000 households.

Earlier this year, its owners filed plans to decommission the wind farm, which had come to the end of its expected running life.

No other offshore wind farms have been built during this time, though the government said, including in response to Holly Cairns’s Dáil statements, that it has plans for more wind farms that are “working their way through their respective development processes”.

The Dáil also heard this summer that, although the wind farm had not begun decommissioning yet, it was not producing electricity at the time as blades had been taken down for maintenance.

Wind Energy Ireland confirmed to The Journal that Arklow Bank One has not produced any electricity since 2024 (Arklow Bank Two, a new offshore windfarm in the same area, is currently in development).

So, although we do not know exactly how much electricity that wind farm produced 20 years ago, it was likely in the region to be able to power 16,000 households. Now, it’s powering zero homes.

And given that there are no other wind farms currently operational, it is correct to say we produced more offshore wind power 20 years ago than we do now.

Verdict

Holly Cairns said in the Dáil “that we had more energy generated from wind 20 years ago”. A similar claim was posted on Social Democrats social media accounts alongside a clip of Cairns speaking.

In terms of wind power overall, Ireland produced 0.66 TWh in 2004, and 11.65 TWh in 2024, suggesting a huge increase in both the proportion and overall amount of Irish electricity produced by wind.

Without the broader context of Cairns extended remarks in the Dáil about offshore wind, the short clip and the captions on the social media post, could be potentially misleading.

However, in the Dáil, Cairns herself repeatedly referenced offshore wind projects, and a Social Democrats spokesperson clarified that this was the basis of her claim that compared current production to that of 20 years ago.

In terms of offshore wind power only, it is correct to say that Ireland produced more electricity 20 years ago than now.

This is because Ireland had one operational wind farm then, and none now (though there are plans for other offshore wind farms, including a second phase at the Arklow offshore site).

Therefore, we rate Cairns’s own claim as TRUE. As per our verdict guide, this means the claim is accurate.

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