Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 18 February 2014
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht
Electricity Generation and Export: Discussion
5:25 pm
Mr. Tim Cowhig:
We would be very open to something like that, but that is different from the land ownership issue. It is separate and I said earlier that we are open to looking ways that the local community can invest, be it by way of an investment bond or a share equity investment. As part of that, we have to engage with the community and get an understanding of what it wants. At the moment, people who neighbour these projects are coming to us and asking how are they going to be compensated for living near the turbine. That is part of the process we are working through right now. This has been happening on a small scale all along, but what is different now is the scale and the volume. We are talking about 40 different wind farms that are built at the same time, so we are trying to develop an overall package so that we can work on those projects at the same time.