Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I said, this is kept under review. I will discuss it with the Ministers, Deputies Coveney and Naughten. I am conscious that there has been a ramp up in the applications received in recent months or certainly in the past year, and it appears that many more will be submitted. We will closely monitor that.

I draw the Senator's attention to guidelines for key infrastructure, including energy infrastructure that were introduced in July 2012 by the previous Minister in the then Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Pat Rabbitte. Those recommendations from the Government set out that any organisation involved in bringing forward such an application should involve the community and have regard to best practice, which would involve community and planning gains. The Senator might have look at that and we might be able to inform some local authorities of that. We can also drop a note to the Senator on that. I will liaise with my two colleagues and report back to the Senator.