James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Local planners, An Bord Pleanála and rural communities are calling for these guidelines. How did the Minister determine that there is no need for these guidelines? Who in his Department is saying they are not required? This will have a real impact in local communities once these projects are constructed. Effectively, they are industrial projects. They take grade A arable farmland out of use. Where is the joined-up thinking in terms of our food security needs? Grade A top class land should not be allowed to be converted into solar projects. That land needs to be kept for its proper use in terms of farming.

In terms of speculation, in my county of Wexford, applications have been made for 400-acre farms to be turned into solar projects. There is massive controversy in the United Kingdom over huge solar projects on 200-acre farms. We are turning 400 acres of top class lands across Wexford into these solar projects. There is a desperate need for guidelines. It is probably too late for Wexford, considering the sheer volume of applications that have been submitted, but this will spread to other counties and the Minister of State needs to provide guidelines for these projects.

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