Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party)

I thank the Minister. Again, we are talking about health. The other side of things is that given the number of wind turbines that have been pushed through planning at the moment, it is not about wind energy. Cian Murtagh is a lecturer in Sligo and he has looked at Ireland’s energy mix. For the month of October, we paid €115 million in curtailment costs and over €300 million in the last three months, taking money from every household to give to people who are profiting from wind energy. This is a business case in terms of what people are doing. They are flooding the market with these now. How many of the wind energy turbines in this country are owned by Ireland? I believe 63% are owned by companies based in China. Our wind energy is a land-take and the energy will not be ours by the time it finishes. It will be gone to different countries.

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