Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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On 12 November 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued its judgment in case C-261/18 relating to the Derrybrien wind farm in Galway, which followed on from the Court's judgment in case C-215/06. The 2019 judgment ruled against Ireland and imposed a lump sum fine of €5m and a daily fine of €15,000 until compliance is achieved, plus legal costs. 

As the Deputy is aware, in accordance with Section 30 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended, I am specifically precluded from exercising any power or control in relation to any particular case with which a planning authority or An Bord Pleanála is or may be concerned.

However, with regard to the payment of fines in this case I can confirm that to date the State has paid €13,220,000 in fines to the European Commission in relation to this case.All payments have been made by my Department.

Details of the payments are as follows:

The lump sum fine of €5m was paid in January 2020.

The Commission advised that compliance with the judgment would be assessed on a six monthly basis, with a payment demand notice to issue in respect of each assessment period. Three installments of daily fines have been paid to date totaling €8,220,000, broken down as follows:

- €2,745,000 was paid in October 2020 covering the period of November 2019 to May 2020. 

- €2,745,000, was paid in June 2021 covering the period of May 2020 to November 2020. 

- €2,730,000 paid in December 2021 covering the period of November 2020 to May 2021.

The European Commission recently sent a payment demand notice for the sum of €2,760,000, which covers the fourth assessment period i.e. 13 May 2021 to 12 November 2021. Officials in my Department are presently processing this payment.

In relation to the closure of this case, I can advise that a decision on the substitute consent application by ESB for their Derrybrien Wind Farm in County Galway was signed by An Bord Pleanála (the Board) on Friday 4 February 2022. 

In their decision, the Board refused to grant substitute consent for ESB’s wind farm, which ends the statutory process seeking to retrospectively regularise the environmental impact assessment status of the wind farm, (the subject matter of the EU court judgment in case C-261/18). 

On 16 March 2022, ESB decided to cease operations at the Derrybrien wind farm permanently, and it is understood that ESB is preparing to decommission the wind farm in line with regulatory and legal requirements.

Planning legislation specifies that a development that has been refused substitute consent is deemed to be an ‘unauthorised development’ development by primary legislation. Galway County Council, the relevant planning authority, is required to issue a planning enforcement notice in accordance with sections 154 and 177O(5) of the Planning and Development Act, which among other things shall require the cessation of activity on site.  

On 30 May 2022, officials in my Department wrote to the Commission, to seek to close out the related infringement case against Ireland on the basis of the Board’s decision to refuse permission for the wind farm, which unauthorised development is now an enforcement matter for the relevant planning authority. Discussions with the Commission in this regard are ongoing.