Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. He is speaking about overreaching national targets, and of course we must think about these, particularly in the context of the carbon budgets passed last night. There is a flip side of the coin which is not strictly related but is very closely related. Last night there was a public meeting in Clonea-Power, County Waterford. A large group of local residents came together to voice their concerns about a very large solar project in the region of 145 acres. I could not be at the meeting but I have heard there was significant community concern about a visual impact and an industrial impact. The residents did not necessarily see the community deriving benefit. I think back to the Covid communications we had. They were so good in ensuring we had community buy-in and everybody understood the scale of the challenge and was prepared to play their part. We need a communications strategy of this order so people understand the scale of the challenge and feel as though they are deriving community benefit from these projects.

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