Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I recently congratulated PDFORRA on its accession to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU. I have been informed that in order to be allowed to accede to associate membership of ICTU, the Representative Association of Commissioned Officers, RACO, must go to the courts. This is a human resources issue, an IR issue, not a legal issue. I fail to understand why we are compelling RACO to go to the courts. I ask the Leader to engage with the Minister to have it dealt with through the conciliation and arbitration scheme that is available, rather than go to the courts.

Over the last few sessions I have alluded to the search and rescue operations and the rejection of the 415-page submission by the Air Corps. Freedom of Information requests, FOIs, have been coming into me over the last few days. I am going to share every document I have with every Member of this House because there is a level of arrogance coming from the Department of Transport - an unintelligent consumer of the service - which is unbelievable. The level of bias, dismissing highly qualified professionals who put forward a 415-page submission, is not only wrong but it will cost this State €400 million over the life of the contract that we should not pay. I do not care if the Air Corps never gets it but I want an intelligent consumer to oversee this.

The other piece of madness in this country which I had the privilege personally to look at was in Derrybrien, County Galway, at the weekend. Some 70 turbines producing enough electricity for 50,000 houses were decommissioned, stopped in their tracks because of something that happened in 2003 regarding an environmental impact assessment. There is a claim about a mudslide. I saw where the mudslide was. It is completely taken over again by nature. That is what nature does. There are miles of roads and fibre-optic cables in Derrybrien. There is an electric grid going into Derrybrien. There are 70 turbines in Derrybrien sitting idle, which cost this State €70 million. If they are to be decommissioned it will take two and a half or three years to get planning permission to decommission them. We will never be able to restore Derrybrien to what it was before the turbines were put in. For God’s sake, in the middle of an international energy emergency, can we not go back to the EU and say we need to put this right? I believe that particular establishment made over €11.8 million for the State in one year. In the month of January alone, €1.8 million was returned to the State in profits. I fully accept planning permissions must be followed through legally. However, it has been in operation for 20 years and nobody has said a word. Over those 20 years only two people have shown an objection.One of those two people went door-to-door to get citizens to agree to put it in in the first place. I think the Minister needs to come to the House to speak on the matter. We need an open and honest debate on Derrybrien. We need to decide what is more important in a national emergency - energy or an environmental impact assessment that was not completed and must be retrospectively completed.