Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. Down through the years many Governments have come and gone, but in fairness, Deputy McLoughlin has taken the bull by the horns by introducing his Bill with the support of the Minister of State, Deputy Kyne. It is a good day when there is unanimous agreement around the House, which is not generally the case. People support the Bill.

Above all it is a good day for rural communities, the quiet people around Ireland who got together, mobilised, got a message out there to every Deputy and councillor, and everybody in the media. Much of the time they used their own resources, putting funding together to try to get this done. Love Leitrim and different community groups went to the trouble of getting videos of the mistakes in other countries. For once today those people can say to themselves that the ordinary person out there has won. A bit of common sense has been brought to elected representatives to go with what the people want. We are listening to the ordinary people on the ground, which is a great thing.

No more than anyone else I had to be educated on this issue. My big concern was over the quality of the drinking water, especially in the counties concerned. We have many problems coming down the line at the moment. Irish Water is hitting major problems on extraction licences with regulations and legislation blocking it. It is trying to resolve issues such as trihalomethanes, THMs, while at the same time being prevented from doing so. If this was landed on top with the danger of damaging groundwater sources, we would have a major problem that could leave entire counties without good quality drinking water.

In talking about producing electricity or whatever we will use down the line, we need to be clear that small farmers in the first place are guardians of the landscape. It is grand from 100 miles away to tell everyone how to live their lives and what to do with them. At the end of the day, small farmers wake up with nature, live with nature and go to sleep with nature. That is what they are about; that is where they are from. We are not talking about these big landlord set-ups. In most cases these resources are planned to be extracted from areas in the west of Ireland. We are talking about people who have been the guardians of their landscape all their lives. I take offence at any of those people being criticised in any way.

As was pointed out earlier, we have lake lands in Leitrim and Roscommon and a large tourist area in the west of Ireland that would be under threat were it not for Bills such as this being introduced. On energy, there are plenty of places 1 km from a house where turbines could be erected. However, it is not the turbine, but the economic value of what it might do. I have no problem if something is efficient and economical. We could use Google this minute to find plenty of parts of Ireland that are 1 km from a house and one could put up some type of a system that is 1 km from a house.

That is grand. People like to talk and say they need this, that and the other, but they might not like a pylon 50 m from their house or a wind turbine 400 m or 500 m from their house. There is no doubt that it would devalue a house. However, there are solutions and there is middle ground to be found. Unfortunately, as Deputy Pringle said, people in rural areas are seen as fat cats getting richer from putting up wind turbines while the ordinary person has to put up with it and it remains an eyesore for the rest of his or her life. There are options. One could put the infrastructure offshore, providing it is economical. We have to live in the real world where we have only a certain amount of money. The question is whether we are going to put up electricity prices by 20% or 30%. Let us have that debate if that is what people want to do but I do not want to see it happen. People are struggling right around the country. Middle ground can be found. Deputy O'Dowd spoke earlier. There is no reason we cannot underground electricity cables. We are able to do that with pipes. It costs more and there is no point saying it does not but we must make decisions about where we are going.

It is similar to tolls being put on new roads that we build. We think we will pay for them in 20 years. There are roads in my area for 100 years, so why do we not look to the long term and seek to pay for infrastructure over 50 or 100 years, which would make undergrounding, for example, economical and would bring communities on board. That would allow electricity to be provided without having to turn the lights off anywhere for industry or anyone else. We all need electricity. Businesses need it. We need to be competitive because we are competing with the likes of France, for example, which has nuclear power, and other countries that are able to produce electricity cheaper. We have to think of our manufacturing industry and what we export. We are an export-led country and we have to be able to compete. There is no point in looking out the door and saying we have a lovely country and have us all with our hands in our pockets and living in a tent. That will not work.

See this speech in context