Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The current guidelines remain in existence. The draft guidelines I have proposed are from the Deputy's perspective an improvement. Existing guidelines call for a 500 m set-back, but it is not mandatory. I am proposing that it would be mandatory. They also provide for an improvement with regard to noise and the eradication of shadow flicker. These draft guidelines would improve the existing situation. I cannot say what will be in the final guidelines. I have received 7,000 submissions by last Friday's closing date. I expect we will be able to publish the final version of the guidelines by the end of June. It is not true to say that if I were not doing this, things somehow would be better. In fact what we are proposing represents an improvement from the perspective of local people.

On the Deputy's point about democracy, I remind him about the Mahon tribunal. Some local authorities made planning decisions that gave rise to a tribunal of inquiry resulting in a recommendation for a planning regulator. We need to have planning policy side by side with local democracy. We need national guidelines to guide decisions made locally. Nobody would want us not to have any national guidelines. For example, I issued a directive to a local authority that wanted to change its county development plan to allow for building on a flood plain. I believe I was right to do that.

We need balance between national policy, good planning and local democracy. I am quite happy to stand over that balance. In this case we need a balance between national policy on reducing our dependence on fossil fuels through using the natural energy we have and the needs of local communities. That is what I intend to ensure when we publish the final guidelines on wind energy.

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