John Kelly (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I am not the spokesperson on energy. This Bill was supposed to be taken by Senator Whelan, who is not here, and Senator Landy, who had to leave early. I have only just seen the contents of the Bill and, whereas I broadly welcome it, I have an issue with Part 6, section 17, which according to the explanatory memorandum, provides for the removal of the requirement that on 1st of May of each year, the three longest serving members of the board of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland must retire. Therefore, instead of removing the members of the board after three years, they can now stay for five years and up to a maximum of ten years.

Since I was elected to this House I have been supporting the people of rural Ireland who are against the erection of wind farms too near to their homes. I introduced a Bill in 2012 with a provision for reasonable set-back distances. When Deputy Alan Kelly became Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, he broadly supported the contents of my Bill and has done everything in his power since then to bring about proper set-back distances. Yet, the Minister, Deputy White's Department has blocked him every step of the way. That is the sad reality of it.

I have also fought against the unnecessary pylons that are proposed for certain parts of the country. As I have said in this House on numerous occasions, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, is pro-wind. I have rarely heard the organisation talk about any other alternative green energy projects. It is concerned with wind energy and in this respect, clear conflicts of interest within SEAI have been raised in this House. I do not want to get personal with the Minister, nor will I, but the people of Ireland generally believe that there is an agenda here, and since the Minister is a barrister and has good skills to argue the toss on this issue, I have no doubt he will do so with me, but he will not convince the people of rural Ireland that there is not an ongoing agenda here. This smacks totally of cronyism, and I will not support the Bill in its entirety unless that section is removed.