Mr. Mark Griffin:

Part of the difficulty we have had as civil servants is the struggle we have with conveying an abstract 16% renewable energy target and dealing with the impact on individuals on the ground by explaining clearly and articulately why this is happening. We are listening and, in the Department, we spend a lot of our time engaging with groups to understand their concerns. We will meet with the IWEA again in the next couple of weeks to go through the concerns around wind energy in more detail and to see what can be done. The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Alex White, has been absolutely clear in the White Paper that community involvement is very important. This involves not just explaining what is going on, but listening and responding and having community participation in small-scale wind energy projects so that they benefit from them. I have visited a couple of wind farms and I see where it is done well and where there is community engagement and real conversations with people. Local people are employed to work with the company as part of the community engagement where there is a clear community funding process in place. That is related to the Deputy's issue. The concerns of his constituents are real and there is a genuine impact. If we focus on the issues of noise and shadow flicker there may be scope for progress.