Paddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I have two issues to raise. I think that we should regionalise our energy production. On the west coast, we had the finest wind speeds in the world, yet there is not a single pylon or wind turbine along the west coast. If we regionalised the production of wind energy along the west coast, then we could move our data centres and big energy users to the region.

Getting things done in this country, though we have all these plans and so on, is too cumbersome and slow. If this Government did anything, it should streamline the public service and Civil Service when addressing issues such as planning. A planning application that is sent in at the moment could take five years before the development is complete. In this day and age, that is ridiculous. It is too long and too cumbersome. The Government should look at that.