Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise a few issues. The first is the wind energy guidelines, which are grossly outdated given they are 15 years old. We have been promised time and time again that a new iteration of them is on the way. On the eve of the last general election, I think in December 2019, a draft version of the wind energy guidelines made its way into the Dáil and was debated. Along came the general election and the draft was put on ice. It never happened and it still has not happened. We are a long way down the road and the iteration put out in December 2019 is now outdated. We have repeatedly had blocks of legislation on planning and amending planning law coming through these Houses but the big elephant in the room is the fact we have an outdated wind energy policy. It is not good for those who want to develop wind energy and it is also not good for the communities that are surrounded by wind energy. It is bad on both fronts and gives little protection to those communities. I speak with many planning officials and they find it difficult to assess a modern application coming in for a colossal wind farm, yet planners are trying to benchmark it based on an old policy that is outdated. I ask that when the Minister of State responds later, he tell us when those guidelines will be published. The last I heard was that they were on the desk of the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and then they went over to the desk of the Minister, Deputy Ryan, and that the latter was looking at the noise output and had some level of concern. It is being kicked over and back. These things should belong in one Department and not be passed from one Ministry over to another. We need new guidelines. I think of communities in Clare, some of whom saw 12 to 15 turbines go up in their locality, and who embraced it. However, they are now seeing a proliferation and they need some protection in these new guidelines because it just is not there at the moment.

The other point I wish to join colleagues in addressing is the Gresham House deal and the €1.3 billion, I think, to increase afforestation more quickly. It is a very bad deal for rural Ireland. In fact, it sells it out. There are so many people who still depend on farming. There are 8,000 farm families in Clare, which is hard to believe, out of a population of 120,000. That shows how dependent we still are on that in the county. I farm myself. I foddered this morning at 7.30 before getting on the train here. We are hemmed in by Coillte. We embrace forestry. However, the Government should not sell the national silver and gold. We should not let the land to a private consortium from Britain and allow it to afforest our landscape, which many farming families would depend on or might want to buy to add to their landholdings.

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