Senator John McGahon- speech from 3 Nov 2021

Thank you, Lasky Herlock. What I'd like to raise today, an acting leader, is the wind turbine regulation bill that was withdrawn by Sinn Fein from the Dáil this week. It's important to recognise the huge contribution that wind energy makes to this country. 5,000 people are currently employed by it. If we hit our targets by 2030, that would be another 2,000 people. It contributes 410 euro to the economy every year. The problem with this legislation that was coming in was the fact that it would increase the distance of wind turbines from homes. to 10, it would have increased it to 10, just to get the exact, the nearest, 10 times the height of the turbine. So at the minute in Ireland where we are is 3 to 4 times the height of the turbine. So if you were to increase it to 10 times the height of the turbine from any dwelling anywhere in the country, this would mean theoretically that the land space for any wind turbine is virtually null and void. If you were to increase it by 4 times, for example, that reduces 45% of the land available to wind turbines in Ireland. So if you go from, if that's 40% at 4, imagine what it is at 10. And that's not me saying that, that's NUI Manute saying that with a study that they carried out. And the reason why I'm raising this today is I'm travelling to Glasgow in a few days for COP and in a week where the world is meeting to discuss how we stop global temperatures rising, the world has come together to say, how can we combat climate action? And here we have the cleanest, safest, most renewable form of technology in the world that we should be using here that can become such a huge natural resource for Ireland. And on the other hand, then, we have a political party who thankfully withdrew a bill, but it was a bill that was knocking around for seven years and just last year in the 24th of November 2020 was reintroduced for a third time, a bill that would have dramatically reduced and would have basically made it null and void for the ability to build wind turbines on inland wind turbines in this country. And we all have to be on the same page, acting leader with climate action. We all have to make the same sacrifices and move the same way. And I just think it's not all that we have people who claim that they fight in support for climate justice while at the same time introducing legislation that would hinder renewable energy on the island of Ireland.