Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support Deputy Stanton. There is a shared border between Cork North-Central and Cork East. My home parish of Knockraha is in Deputy Stanton's electoral area. That could become an epicentre for these, given there is a large substation in Knockraha. In surrounding areas like Leamlara and Lisgoold, in my part of the city and out to Carrignavar and Whitechurch, there will be application after application, and not just for small-scale solar farms. It will involve hundreds of hectares, potentially thousands, in the coming years.

I am a councillor since 2014 and we have been talking about the lack of guidelines since then. Here we are a decade later, saying the same things. The Minister of State is only in the door a relatively short time but we need to get serious about this because there are communities where this is a major blight on the landscape. Nobody doubts the need for solar farms but when some of the largest farmers in east Cork are selling large dairy farms for that purpose, we need to get real and get up to speed with things.

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