Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)

For a year and a half, the people of Dublin West have been guinea pigs for drone infrastructure. The potential for drones to do very important work for humans is definitely there, such as emergency relief, medicine, reaching isolated places due to geography and so on. Such new infrastructure should be with community assent and approval and not inflicted with no recourse by private companies that are in it for a profit and to deliver coffee, burgers and fast food, not medicine or anything that is essential to human beings.

There are incredible levels of noise. There is an erosion of privacy and social cohesion. These are all the issues that should have been explored before this infrastructure was unleashed on the population of Dublin West. Now we see Manna, with Deliveroo, will take part in operating 2 million flights whereas it has been 170,000 heretofore. The Minister, Jack Chambers, was apparently asked to emphasise the uncluttered nature of our airspace to allow these drones in. We see that Enterprise Ireland has given Manna grants, as well as raising money from venture capitalists and Coca-Cola. This should never have happened without community approval. Will our skies become as busy as our roads? Are people ready to give up privacy, community cohesion and peace and quiet in our areas? I do not think so but this is being allowed in the name of inevitability and innovation.

4 o’clock

I wish to raise with the Government the rapid development of major solar installations across the east Cork area, part of my constituency. There are large numbers of developments in planning, under discussion or in negotiation that represent very significant land volumes, amounting to thousands of acres. Not to identify any one development but across the region north of Midleton, north of Youghal and Killeagh, developments are being actively pushed through. The concern I want to highlight is that Ireland's policy on this does not seem to take into account the quality of the agricultural ground and its importance to the sustainability of our agrifood network and system and the economic success these have achieved for rural Ireland over many years. Other European countries have rightly regulated this. We do not seem to be regulating so as not to put solar developments on lands deemed to have high quality soil and a high value in terms of agricultural produce, whether those lands pertain to dairy, tillage or other areas of agriculture. Could this be deemed by the Cabinet infrastructure committee to be a matter worthy of discussion given the economic importance of the agrifood sector to the country?

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