Mr. David Manning:

On the planning issue, I hold the view that Ireland has a robust planning system. As a developer or as an individual in a community, I can have confidence in the robustness of the planning process, whether an application goes through the local authority planning process and then, if it is refused there, to An Bord Pleanála, or is considered under strategic infrastructure. In fairness, at a national level, Ireland has a robust planning process.

Questions have arisen a number of times in terms of distance to turbines, etc., and none of us is averse to having that discussion. What is really important in the way the wind debate has gone is transparency and open discussion. People can only make informed decisions when they have all of the information, and balanced and fair information.

The ownership piece is an interesting one. Our business in Great Britain has looked quite a lot in recent years at the community ownership model, where the community would be a co-investor in the project. We would be positive about that. The challenge that arises time and again is that these are expensive capital projects and communities face difficulties in raising that capital to be part of the project. None of us has managed to answer that question. If we can get an answer to that question, nobody in our industry would be averse to saying there would be a community involvement piece in the project itself.

I make a final point on the value associated with wind farms. Reference was made to electricity generated at the local level but not necessarily to the value of the local community. I make two basic points on that. In terms of how the market works, as the wind blows - it is blowing into the market - it helps to bring the wholesale price of energy down, which benefits all consumers. There is a benefit to every consumer in that context at the macro-market level.

At the local level then, there is quite a reasonable value associated with the generation of wind energy in a local area. These include rates to local authorities, rental payments to landowners where wind turbines are sited, community funds associated with wind farms and, as developers build out their wind farms, upgrades to local infrastructure such as roads, local community access points and the widening of bridges, in which we have been involved. There are a number of additional added-value activities associated with it. There are also jobs in the delivery of the infrastructure. Then, as the industry continues to grow, there are jobs in the maintenance of this industry. One of the analogies I use on this is Harland and Wolff, in Belfast, which has made a significant investment in its dry-dock of £100 million in order to facilitate the assembly of turbines. When the renewable sector speaks about potential jobs for the future, that is the type of investment of which we speak.