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:

What we are looking to do in the midlands is not different from what is being developed in the south west of Ireland. Planning permission has been granted for 375 turbines in County Kerry. They are placed on top of a hill, so they are as visible as the type of turbines we are hoping to put in the midlands. There were other criteria as well. We needed to build a project of a scale as close to the UK to the possible. The midlands was an obvious place to look at developing a project like this, because there had not been development in the midlands as there has been in the rest of the country.