Renewable Energy Generation
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-24
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Barry Ward (FG), Dún Laoghaire

The Minister of State is absolutely right, and the value of the community benefit funds, in particular, is huge. We will not feel the effect of this until these things are up and running. Again, in relation to linking them into local communities and the people who are elected to represent those communities, he referred to the professional delivery of community benefit funds. Is there a role for local elected representatives or community councils or other democratic local bodies to have a say in how that money can be utilised and how it can be given best effect i the local community? As I said, these projects are good anyway, but what the Department has constructed here is a really good scheme to add benefits for local communities. They will see that once it is up and running, but there is a real benefit to allowing local councillors and local community organisations that have a democratic element to them to have an input into this rather than having it coldly and professionally delivered without the input of the local community.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-24