An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-09
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Joanne Collins (SF), Agricultural Panel

I raise an issue I have raised a couple of times here previously. I cannot even count the amount of calls I had on the matter over the weekend. I am standing here on behalf of hundreds of families in County Limerick who have voiced their disgust and anger at the Government's decision to vote down the Bill on wind farms last week. As the House will know, I have raised multiple times the fact that County Limerick has three proposed wind farms about to go up. New guidelines were drafted for this in 2016. That is ten years it has been sitting there and not published.
Last year, Government had the opportunity to allow legislation go forward for those guidelines to be published only for us to see them pushed out for another year - another year of communities being torn apart and uncertainty about whether the height of the wind turbines that are being put up are at the height they should be and whether the setback distance needs to be more. I have raised how future planning permissions in rural areas will be dramatically reduced because of wind turbines going into the wrong places. What really got to people most was Ministers attending public meetings in County Limerick, telling people in these communities they stood with them, but then voting against them last week. I wanted to put that on the record. It would be nice if we could have a debate in the House in order that we might be able to push something forward for these communities to get a bit of guidance on what is allowed in terms of the height, the setbacks and the areas in which they are going.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:26+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-09