Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Overall responsibility for issuing the new guidelines rests with the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government but my Department has a significant role to play in that. When I was on the other side of the committee room, I grilled my predecessor and the previous Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government about why this was not happening. There is a commitment in the programme for Government to have the new guidelines in place within three to six months. We are working on them at the moment and I have asked committee members to meet me tomorrow to discuss this issue and ascertain what are their objectives. There have been many public hearings on this. We have all listened to what communities have to say and we have to try to strike a fair balance in this context. There are opportunities in respect of renewable energy as a whole and wind energy, in particular. We need to balance them in the context of the issues that communities have, and how they can have a greater role not just in consultation, which is important, but in respect of the returns that may be generated by these projects. I will thrash that out in greater detail tomorrow with members of the committee and it is my objective to have the guidelines in place as quickly as possible. It would be great if it could happen sooner. There are a number of complexities but our objective is to deliver them within six months.