Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Fair play to Deputy Whitmore for championing swifts. Tidy Towns is playing a great role in surveying and counting swifts and then putting in place new boxes. We have to future-proof for that.

I come back to the RESS 2 scheme and the recent announcement of the provisional list of successful schemes. I am delighted to say that a group in Clonakilty was successful in a 5 MW project. It is very much community-led, driven by the chamber of commerce there, with all dividends from the proceeds generated from the generation of the electricity going back into the community.

Community is very much at the heart of it. The project is still far from being delivered and there are many obstacles to overcome. I am sure many community projects throughout the country will encounter issues with delivery, some of which were alluded to, including cost and the different aspects of it. One of the aspects that has been highlighted by some of the projects is connection to the closest power station. The solar farm might be located in one location but the power station may be located, in some cases, a kilometre away. In most cases, that will require the laying of a cable between the solar farm and the power station using public roads. That brings with it the cost of road cutting, road closure and installation, which adds up to tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of euro.

To bring it back to local authorities and how we can help them out, is there any way, to help the final delivery of the scheme, either SEAI or the Department would help out communities through them? They could do so by compensating local authorities for waiving, for example, road closure fees, which can be quite expensive. Could they help out with the cost of laying the cable, especially where it is a community-driven and community-led project? That particular project in Clonakilty is phenomenal because 5 MW is the energy use of Clonakilty and the surrounding area in the summer months. On certain days in the summer, we could meet the power needs of the entire town through this renewable energy source that will, in essence, take the town off-grid, which is the future. Can local authorities be helped out by the waiving of fees for road closures etc.?