Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

At the earliest opportunity, perhaps in the new year, I would welcome a debate in this House on the generation of electricity from wind, recognising that many of the areas suitable for the capture of wind energy on shore have now been used up and that planning attempts continue to seek to put wind turbines in areas that are not suitable. Frankly, many communities believe there is an overconcentration of wind turbines in their areas. The latest wind energy guidelines have not yetf been published and that is unfortunate. I would like to see a more advanced strategy from the Government to look at the potential for offshore wind energy generation. There have been some developments in recent weeks about proposals on the east coast of Ireland but there is an abundance of wind off our west coast. The technologies are developing and it is a bit more complicated because similar to oil rigs, the wind turbines will need to float. We should and could be at the cutting edge of this development. There are real opportunities for us to be part of the beginning of something, to capture the ideas at the start and ultimately to export the technologies that will be developed to secure this kind of electricity. There are real opportunities and I hope we can have a debate on that particular strategy.