John Kelly (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I join in tribute to my good friend, Jimmy Harte, and I wish him well in his retirement. I had a particular relationship with Jimmy in that we met first on the Seanad campaign criss-crossing the country and we regularly met up and stayed in the Lucan Spa Hotel. Sadly, Jimmy will not stand for re-election but I wish him well on his retirement and I wish him a speedy recovery.

I wish to raise the matter of how business is conducted in government. Every year during our budget we have the HSE calling for more and more money. It is €500 million short or €400 million short. The lack of interdepartmental joined-up thinking is one example of how we are wasting money. I hope the Leader can bring this to the attention of both the Minister for Health and the Minister for the environment. There is a lady in Castlerea in County Roscommon who has had a stroke. She is in a unit in Galway and it is costing €150,000 to keep her there with no end in sight. She is also looking for a housing adaptation grant in order for her family to be able to take her home. As she is over the limit she will not receive the grant she needs, which is only €35,000. If Departments talked to each other, one could say, "Give that woman the €35,000 to make her house adaptable and let us save on the €150,000." However, it does not happen, it is ridiculous. It is no wonder that families are frustrated looking at these scenarios.

I now turn to the proposed wind turbine set-back distances, leaks about which featured in yesterday’s media. Going from 500 m to 600 m is nothing short of tokenism. Greater set-back distances are required. We have a peculiar scenario where two Ministers in one party, my party, cannot agree on this. The Minister, Deputy Kelly, wants larger set-back distances but the Minister of State, Deputy White, is blocking it because he thinks we will not meet our 2020 targets. We will reach our targets if other forms of renewable energy were explored instead of concentrating solely on onshore wind power. The offshore wind power yield is ten times greater than onshore and it is not being done. However it proves, and we have raised this many times with Senators Whelan and Landy in this House, that the conflicts of interest which exist have won this debate.