Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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It is not necessarily the best decision in the world. We are making such decisions on the basis of desperation. This is because we have to pay back to Britain the money we supposedly received from it in the form of a bailout. We are now so desperate that we no longer care whether we destroy our communities, blight our landscape for ever and decimate our tourism industry. The decision is being made because we are desperate. One should not make decisions when one is desperate. One should sit back and think about what one is doing. This meeting will be the beginning and end of the consultation process for Element Power and Bord na Móna. They will have everything on their side in the future and they will ram home their advantage. Sadly, however, the public will not put up with that. If the companies do not work with the people on this matter, then what is envisaged will never come to pass. I will not be involved, but if turbines are erected, people will use chainsaws and angle grinders to bring them down. That is a fact. One does not tell Irish people what to do with their own land or how to live their lives. We beat the Brits out of here who tried to do that, and they will be beaten out again if that is what it takes.