Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Guidelines on wind farms are long promised. They were first promised four years ago and four Ministers ago. Wind farm proposals are continuing to receive planning permission and are proceeding to construction. The reason for the latest delay is the European Court of Justice's ruling on the Belgian case. It sets a requirement for a strategic environmental assessment. That will take time. The Government is aware of this since October, which is when the European Court of Justice ruled in the case. The Government promised to have guidelines in place within three to six months of coming into office. It is heading towards 12 months in office and the matter is in its programme for Government. We have not seen any effort to move this forward. When will the Government begin the strategic environmental assessment to get this process under way? It will take six to 12 months to carry out the consultation on the strategic environmental assessment and to have the work done. When will it be started? When will we see guidelines in place for wind farms? For our part, we want to see regulations, but we do not even have guidelines. We are operating under guidelines from 2006.

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