John Kelly (Labour)

I welcome the Minister to the House again. Similar to Senator Whelan, I am a little out of my depth on this issue. I am no J. R. Ewing but I do want to talk about some of our energy resources. I would like to question the Minister on the Corrib natural gas field. I know he received a report from the Western Development Commission some months ago which contained recommendations about bringing natural gas to the west and north west. It suggested that this would save millions for local businesses. As I have mentioned before, the Shannonside Co-op in my own town of Ballaghaderreen uses more electricity than the whole town of Castlebar, so it would be very important for this gas to go along the natural route east.

The issue of fracking was raised by Senator MacSharry. The problem with fracking is fear of the unknown. We do not really know what is likely to happen if we allow companies to engage in it. I welcome the report that has been commissioned in the US, and the sooner we see it, the better, because this issue is of grave concern to many people, especially in my part of the country.

With regard to our energy resources, there are many new technologies coming on stream, and I am conscious that things will keep changing over the next 20 to 25 years. I gave an example of that today by mentioning companies that are creating energy in different ways, and as time goes by there will be new initiatives and technologies. The one I presented today was an example of cheaper electricity generation. It is green, clean and neighbour friendly and it does not create an eyesore in the landscape.

On that subject, as the Minister knows, wind energy is my pet project at the moment, but I am concerned that unless we start to consider other technologies to generate electricity, our landscape will be destroyed by wind turbines. I know it is the Minister's opinion that we will not have wind farm developments at every crossroads in the country, but I am concerned about something that happened in Donegal County Council last week. Councillors were asked to lift the 500 metre restriction on the distance between wind turbines and houses, and they were sold the story that unless they did so, Donegal would not achieve even 3% of its wind energy targets. If Donegal cannot achieve 3% of its target while maintaining the 500 metre restriction, I can guarantee that turbines will be at every crossroads in the country, and particularly in Donegal. I have grave concerns about that.

The Minister has been helpful, suggesting to me that there should be public consultation on these issues and that there should be community gain, and I agree with him. Unfortunately, to date, public consultation has happened only after the deal is done. I welcome yesterday's announcement by Mainstream in which it provided details of a proposed project. That is what I call public consultation. It did not do things in reverse order, signing sweet deals with farmers and saying what is in it for them before telling the public what it proposes to do. I welcome the announcement, although I hope the project does not affect the human right of people to live in peace and harmony in the countryside. I hope there will be community gain, public consultation and public agreement.

In addition, I hope that when such companies announce the creation of, for example, 4,000 jobs, these are actual jobs. When it comes to such announcements, there is always a certain amount of spin attached.

When I met the Finnish ambassador to Ireland in this House recently, I asked him about wind farm developments in Finland. He said that when wind energy was first introduced in Finland, everybody was happy with it as it was green and clean and they liked the turbines and so on, but now there are many objections to such developments, and if there are objections to a project, it does not go ahead. They do not force such projects on people who do not want to live beside them. We must think hard before we decide to destroy our landscape with wind turbines that will be an eyesore for years into the future.