Wind Energy Guidelines
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-14
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Kieran O'Donnell (FG), Limerick City

I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for raising this important issue, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy James Browne.
As the Deputy will be aware, the programme for Government reaffirms Ireland's commitment to 80% of electricity demand being met in the near term and there are plans to move to net zero by 2050. The deployment of renewable electricity, including wind energy, is vital to Ireland meeting its ambitious domestic targets and international commitments.
The commencement of Chapters 1 to 4, inclusive, of Part 3 of the Planning and Development Act 2024 provides the statutory basis for the national planning framework and regional spatial and economic strategies and introduces provisions for what are known as national planning statements. These national planning statements have been introduced to replace ministerial guidelines issued under section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000. All existing section 28 guidelines will, over time, be revoked and replaced with new national planning statements. Any current section 28 guidelines will, however, remain in force until revoked or replaced by a corresponding national planning statement. Subsequently, this means new guidance on wind energy development will issue as a national planning statement following review of the existing 2006 wind energy development guidelines.
While this has been ongoing for some time, progress has been made towards concluding the review process. In light of the evolving policy and legislative framework, there is a need to ensure the national planning statement will be fit for purpose, while having appropriate regard to the impacts of wind energy development.
In respect of sectoral national planning statements in particular, such as onshore wind energy development, there is also an important role for the relevant policy Department collaborating with my Department on the development of these national planning statements. In that context, my Department is working closely with the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment as the Department with responsibility for this area of Government policy in order to identify the factors relevant to the preparation of the national planning statement. It will address key matters, including noise, setback distance, shadow flicker, community obligation, community dividend and grid connection.
The Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment, in the context of its environmental noise, climate and renewable energy policies remit, has been working to advance guidance on the noise aspect of the national planning statement, which is highly technical in nature. With regard to the impact of development on communities, the upcoming national planning statement will aim to strike an appropriate balance between addressing the concerns of local communities by ensuring there is greater and earlier community engagement by wind energy developers, while maintaining Ireland's ability to deliver on its binding climate and renewable energy obligations.
Public participation is the key element of substantive decision-making processes under the Planning and Development Act 2024. It is open to members of the public to make an observation or submission on the draft development plan to the local authority. Any member of the public may make an observation or submission on a planning application, including in relation to wind energy developments. Planning authorities are statutorily obliged to consider such submissions before making a decision on the application. Further to this, the draft national planning statement on wind energy will be subject to strategic environmental assessment and a public consultation will be held as part of the process, whereby individual stakeholders, including community groups, will have an opportunity to make observations on the draft national planning statement.

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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/2026-07-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-14