Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is it: plain speaking. There is one other issue. I will not go into individual cases, but it goes back to a point that was made earlier about planning. I was contacted by a person in a case where planning permission had been sought for a solar farm in an area. A second planning permission was sought for a second solar farm in a different area. Then a third application for planning permission was made which just happened to be in the middle of the two areas and connected them. Should that not have been the one planning application? Now there is another planning application to put in a substation. What happened when it went to public consultation was that people were consulted on the applications separately when they should have consulted people on all the applications at the same time if it was open and transparent. The reason there is sometimes a lack of trust in the public around planning is that they see things like this happening. These applications should have been presented together. Everyone should have had their ideas heard. I support renewable energy creation such as solar, wind and wave energy, but when we see things like that happening communities feel it is an act.