Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as ucht teacht isteach agus é seo a thógáil. It is fitting that today, when I did something I only do once a week and collected my post in Leinster House, I got Government notice of statutory instruments designating special areas of conservation in County Galway, for the attention of land owners and land users. These are designated special areas of conservation that have now been confirmed at EU level.

They afford huge environmental protection. In fact, people would argue that they provide environmental protection over and above human protection in terms of creating employment and having roads, water systems, sewerage systems and so on. This is very relevant to today's debate. I am sure the Minister of State would agree that we need to preserve the environment, both on land and at sea, irrespective of who is doing the developing.

I am sure the Minister of State believes in balance. There is no absolute good in anything humans do. There is always a balance and a trade-off. There is nobody who does not agree with the harnessing of our massive natural resource, particularly wind, off the coast, including waves, tides and anything that can be done. In doing that, however, it is important to listen to the concerns of local communities and make sure we strike a balance between wind energy targets and the rights of residents in various areas.

One of the biggest challenges we face is the increasing size of turbines. Originally, turbines were very small. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle will be familiar with the turbines in Cois Fharraige that Pól Ó Foighil erected many years ago, which look very small today. They have grown, however. To give the Minister of State an example, I am told the turbines at the Arklow Bank Wind Park are 12 km out to sea and 124 m tall. We might compare that to what is proposed, for example, in the Sceirde Rocks Windfarm. Some of them will be up to 11 km off the coast, but I understand that some will be as near as less than 6 km away. They are over 300 m in height, which is the height of the Eiffel Tower, in one of the most pristine and beautiful areas in the country and near human habitation where there is quite a considerable population. Therefore, the question has to be asked as to where the balance is. Of course, if they were floating turbines out in the ocean, there would be no problem. In our rush, however, and it is an understandable rush to get wind energy harnessed, these have been proposed as fixed-base turbines. I am not trying to get into the planning of these today. I understand there will be a statutory planning process through the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority, MARA, and maybe the Minister of State can outline all of that. However, there is a need to update the 2006 wind development guidelines - I have just outlined to the Minister of State the huge change in the technology - to make sure they meet the new requirements in terms of the heights of these turbines and the distance they are recessed from the nearest human habitation. If we do not tackle this, we are going to find that we are taking a shortcut to nowhere. We have seen this in the past where in people's hurry and their unwillingness to try to strike the right balance, they actually cause more delay than if they had taken a more considered and balanced approach and gotten everybody to move forward together. There is certainly one thing I would say to the Minister of State, which is that after all the restrictions that have been placed on these communities to start with, there would be huge resentment if anyone said to them that their quality of life does not count equally.

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