Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Question 305: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the steps he will take to ensure that wind farms are not located in inappropriate areas including residential and scenic areas; if he will ensure that the public's views and concerns on proposed wind farms are properly taken into account; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47737/10]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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My Department issued Wind Energy Development Guidelines in June 2006. A copy of the Guidelines is available on my Department's website www.environ.ie.

These Guidelines recommend an approach which seeks to identify, within the development plan process, key areas where wind energy resources are good and are capable of being exploited. Chapter 6 in the Guidelines comprehensively addresses aesthetic considerations in the siting and design of wind farms to ensure the highest standards are applied in particular where landscape sensitivity is high as in scenic areas.

It is a matter for each planning authority to assess an application for a wind turbine on its own merits in accordance with its statutory Development Plan and having regard to site specific conditions.

Planning authorities are required to undertake a statutory public consultation process when making or varying a development plan. This allows all stakeholders and interested parties the opportunity to make submissions while plans are at draft stage and before their adoption by the relevant planning authority. It is also open to individuals to make an observation or lodge an objection in relation to an individual planning application for a wind energy development.

My Department's guidelines, in addition, recommend that planning authorities encourage wind farm developers to engage in active consultation and dialogue with local communities at an early stage in the development consent process.