John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The programme for Government on page 124 commits to facilitating the development of social energy projects. Recently, I asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, who passed the question on to the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, whether there were intentions to introduce guidelines for the development of solar farms. In his reply, the latter stated that there were no specific guidelines in place and he was satisfied that the planning code was sufficiently robust to facilitate the assessment of individual planning applications for solar farms.

At the end of January, An Bord Pleanála made a majority ruling of five to three refusing a development. Its reasons for and considerations in doing this were specifically the lack of guidance at national, regional and local level in respect of the appropriate location, scale and distribution of future proposals for solar power. Solar power has the potential to deliver, but we want that done in an organised way in order that it does not become a blight on the landscape.

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