Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

Recently I had the privilege of walking one of the proposed sites in Shancloon near Caherlistrane in County Galway, where what was before me was beautiful open landscape. What amazed me was that this windfarm was proposed to be built on a bog. In order to build a turbine on a bog, a significant amount of peat has to be excavated in order to put in the concrete base to allow for the turbine to go up. The problem here is that this goes against everything we are working for environmentally; digging up bogs to put in wind turbines that ultimately have a useful life of maybe 30 to 40 years before they have to be considered to be taken down at that point. I also highlight that the engagement that happens in advance of these developments going to a planning process where a turbine farm is being proposed at 50 MW. That is the potential output of the turbines. As a result, those planning applications can go through directly to An Coimisiún Pleanála. The reality for a lot of these farms that are proposed is that their output will be a lot less than 50 MW and they should be going to the council first based on output, not based on potential capacity. That is something that needs to be hammered quickly because they are acting as if they are going to put out 50 MW when the reality is it will be a lot less.

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