Mr. Kevin Kelly:

I have also had some experience in Galway. My view is there will always be a certain tension between the protection of the Irish language and the development of areas experiencing rural decline. We know from the last inter-census period that practically the entire western seaboard has experienced population decline over that period, with the exception of County Galway, due to the influence of the city.

At any point in time, one is trying to, on the one hand, protect the Irish language and those communities and on the other hand, ensure that the county and area develops in terms of infrastructure and also that each individual settlement develops in accordance with its needs. My experience is that the impact of some of those infrastructural developments including wind farms, during construction phase, is limited. People come into the area for that construction phase, but it does not have that much of an ongoing effect thereafter, other than the physicality of what is left behind.

If there is development within a Gaeltacht area, the community funds provision from those developments would be the positive impact on the community. I am not so sure how one could attach conditions to those types of developments in a legal way, in a way which would be positive for the Gaeltacht communities or in a way which would, in a real way, protect or advance the Irish language of the Gaeltacht communities in our counties.