In the programme for Government there is a commitment to update, as a matter of urgency, the wind farm planning guidelines. That was to happen within three to six months of the programme being published. It did not happen after nine months, we are now much further on and the new guidelines have still not emerged. The current wind farm guidelines are inadequate and outdated. Rural communities feel under siege by the wind farms and the power lines that are supporting them. Many of these wind farms have already been built and others are being actively resisted in the courts at the moment. The Government needs to update the wind farm guidelines to ease the distress being suffered by rural communities. When will these inadequate and outdated guidelines be updated, as promised?

They are inadequate, outdated and they do need to be changed. The Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Simon Coveney, and the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Denis Naughten, are making good progress on devising a set of regulations that will be effective, practical and that will actually work. We are aware of the sensitivity of this issue in many locations throughout the country.