Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

To assist Deputy Gould with the issue of permission for solar farms. If farmers, for example, with a 100 acre holding release more than 49% of their land holding, they lose their single farm payment. What happens as a result is that three or four farmers come together. To make it viable to build a solar farm, you need between 180 acres and 200 acres with a high-power line. Often, a company goes to more than one farmer and by the time the process is finished there might be three or four applications from the one company trying to make the whole unit viable. That is a lot of the reason different applications go in at certain times. A company might get one farmer and then get a second farm that is close enough and then it might try to link two or three farms together to make one project in order to make it viable.