Critical Infrastructure Bill 2026: Report and Final Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-13
============================================================

Cathal Crowe (FF), Clare

Those are to be administered by a different organisation. It is important that other projects also move at pace. University Hospital Limerick dominates so many debates in the House, whether at question time or during questions to the Taoiseach. I would like to see that project, above all others, progressed and advanced.
A balance needs to be struck between advancing critical infrastructure and public projects and listening to the voices of objectors. It concerns me hugely that just this week, a large wind farm company objected to, and had overruled, planning permission that had been granted to a private family for a private dwelling just outside Thurles, County Tipperary. The reasons it opposed planning and put the family through the wringer of An Coimisúin Pleanála had nothing to do with the principles of renewable energy or wind turbines and their rotational impact. The objection dealt with the county development plan and the entitlement the family would have, as local rural people, to live in the local rural area they originate from. This is fundamentally wrong. The company in question, Orsted, would want to take a good look at itself. If it intends to become a feature of the rural Irish landscape providing renewable energy, it needs to understand that it has to coexist with families in the area. We cannot have one without the other. Families will continue to exist. This did not occur in my constituency of Clare but it is something we are seriously concerned about as the company tees up other projects in the west.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:03+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-13