Michelle Mulherin (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The fact is that if it were not for a financial difficulty encountered in 2016, the plant would be up and running. It had received all the necessary consents. The regulations which the Minister has to hand have not changed since 2012 and formed the basis upon which the regulator originally issued consents. There has been no material change in the application. Perhaps somebody made an error somewhere wrong along the way. There are serious questions to be answered by the regulator in respect of this matter. I will be bringing it to the attention of the Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Change and Environment in order to get some answers. There is a lot at stake.We are talking about renewable heat and renewable electricity. This is a whole package and an awful lot of work has gone into it for the regulator to say it got it wrong in the first place. I do not accept that and common sense should prevail. There are clearly issues within the current process when the regulator had to get a second lot of consultants. Notwithstanding the complexities, things should be clear and transparent. They have to make sense to somebody, somewhere, and some empirical standard and test has to be applied. The consultants who previously dealt with this are now saying regulations have not changed and the general public will want to know why such a project, especially in north Mayo, cannot be got over the line. They will also want to know why a Government agency is delaying it in a way that is quite inexplicable.

If a clear explanation could be given by the Minister or the regulator, whose job it is to do so, I would at least have something to take back to people but I have no answer at this point. The regulator appeared before the special climate action committee and he had nothing to offer on that occasion but I will raise this again as it is very important for the north Mayo area.