Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too welcome the opportunity to speak on this important issue. Where energy prices are concerned, the biggest problem is that we do not know who owns what. I will first address the issue of wind farms. Down my side of the country, there are six proposals to build wind farms near where I live. That is all great for green energy, providing Government policy and meeting our climate action measures but the local people are not very happy. They are not happy with the fact that the landscape will be destroyed with wind towers 185 m high. It is deemed a strategic infrastructure development and, therefore, does not even have to go to the county council for planning permission; it can go straight to An Bord Pleanála. The idea of strategic infrastructural development has gone past its sell-by date because it does not improve or increase the speed at which things get done. Private investors are getting involved in this market. They provide projects and if they are successful in getting them through the planning permission stage, they then have an asset which they can sell off again and again. At the end of the day, we do not know who owns it or who can run it. Communities are paid off with the promise of what is called a community dividend. I would call that a bribe to just wait quietly. I mentioned to the Taoiseach that all of these wind farms are being planned in an era in which we have outdated planning guidelines, in place since 2006, when wind turbine height was approximately 85 m. We have a bit of soul-searching to regarding what we do when trying to produce green energy through onshore wind energy.

When I look at some of the proposals that are coming forward, we are going back. It is a retrograde step. It will destroy communities. It is dividing communities and it is being done without proper consultation. When an application for planning does not even go to the person's local authority in the first instance to be adjudged, it says a lot about what is happening in that sector.

In my constituency, there is a proposal to build what they call a reserve gas-fired generator and a battery storage area. People might say that is great and a fantastic investment but again it is being done by private investors. The gas will be piped from Tynagh to a place between Killimer and Portumna. I was told that when it was proposed, the local people were told it was going to be a solar panel farm. What is being built, however, will take up more than 100 acres in rural Ireland. It will create a natural gas generating electricity generator. It is not green energy and it will have kerosene as a backup in case the natural gas is not there. It will have serious implications for security, for fire, for safety, for the environment and for all the residents around there in terms of their properties and devaluation. God only knows why such a project is even being dreamed up to be put in a place like this. What happened again is that this project did not even go before Galway County Council as normal planning. It has gone to An Bord Pleanála as strategic infrastructural development. It is unbelievable to think that a project of this size is being proposed by private investors without any proper consultation. Mind you, one of the things they did do was to send out cheques to 35 local community groups in the area - and I do not know whether these were supposed to be community dividends - before anybody copped on to what was going on. Only for the vigilance of a particular person who spoke to one of the people on the ground who was putting in a microphone to test sound, and following a discussion, he found that this was not for solar panels and this was a generating station. He was brought up to Tullamore so they could show him what exactly they were doing and he was flabbergasted. That was only the weekend before last. It resulted in 100 people gathering in Portumna last Thursday night to find out a bit more about this. I found out about it on Thursday and I was in Galway County Council on Friday morning only to discover the planning application was already lodged with An Bord Pleanála and that the clock is ticking.

If this is the kind of development we are doing to create energy security, we are doing a huge disservice to the people in this country. It is high time we called it out for what it is. It is utter blackguardism of the people in rural Ireland and people in cities. They think we are going to get cheap energy and security of energy but they do not realise we are going to have to pay through the nose for every bit of it because we will not own one piece of it. We are blindly following the idea that we need to have this infrastructure at all costs and at any cost. I fear for the future of our country if this is what we are doing. Effectively, we are selling our assets out of the country like a fire sale in a way.

With green energy we have been telling people that solar panels are a great thing - and they are - but there is problem. If someone borrows €10,000 to €15,000 to put in solar panels, they get a grant of €2,700 or €2,400. They put them in, they work and they are saving on energy and are creating green energy. Lo and behold the Government comes along and says, "If you feed more than €600 of electricity back to the grid, you are taxed on it." I wonder what that is all about. It is another opportunity to tax people when they are trying to do something that is good for their home and good for the environment but straight away the Government puts in a tax. There should be no income tax put on anybody who is feeding electricity back into the grid. They are doing a service to this country and they are putting it in at a price that is very low compared to what they are paying for their electricity. Again it is an opportunity for the Government to take the money from the victims, the taxpayers in this country, or from people who borrow money to put in a solar panel and battery set-up in their houses. The Government gives them a grant to bring them in but in a short time it will get that money back in income tax if the sun is shining or if the days are bright.

There is a lot of soul searching to be done in relation to our agenda about greening this country. At the moment people in rural Ireland and in my constituency who are impacted by all of these developments feel they are being conned into something they do not like. They are watching it very carefully.

I did not talk much about the affordability but in essence I am referring to it. We are losing control over affordability by selling everything off and letting private investors in while subsidising them to get these projects up and running. It is important that we say it as it is so everybody understands what is going on. It is not scaremongering. These are the facts I see on the ground in my constituency and across the country where we have communities coming together to try to stop this mayhem that is being imposed on them with wind farms and other such developments by private investors who are out to make money. Fair dues to them: when they see the opportunity they can do that.

It is time for a wake-up call and to say, "Hold on a minute. We are not doing this right at all." We need to get back to basics. We need to understand what we want to do and who we are doing it for. We are doing it for the people. We have to do it for the people and not for the profit-making for other people.

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