Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

To be blunt, the Minister is my constituency colleague and he and I are in trouble as a result of wind farms, including the Sliabh Bán wind farm. Like the Minister, I see the value of wind. However, I have argued for a long time that the stipulations and guidelines in place are out of kilter with the needs of people and their way of life. Coillte must start giving something back and this is one area where we could do something.

The Sliabh Bán wind farm was established under the old guidelines. I hope the Minister will be able to address the issues causing dissatisfaction in the community, including wind turbine noise and their size. As an advocate of wind power, I am not happy with the current structure as it does not provide a good method for dealing with local communities which, in turn, do not buy into wind power. While noise is not an issue for some people, it upsets and annoys others. The Minister should ensure Coillte holds regular meetings with community groups and considers new ideas. The issue of providing local communities with a wind turbine to meet their electricity needs is not new. The practice has been adopted elsewhere in Europe, including Scotland, and it works perfectly well.

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