I raise an issue I have raised a number of times in the House, namely, wind energy, particularly for County Limerick. A 2013 Government circular asked local authorities to refrain from updating their wind energy strategies or maps. In the 13 years since, Limerick City and County Council has updated its map to change an area from orange to green. It will not, by any means, change from green to red or green to orange. It will change the map to suit itself. For 13 years, councils have been told not to change the map. One of the issues is that it is being changed to suit an area or to suit a developer that might want to put a wind farm somewhere where previously it would not have been preferred but now all of a sudden is.

Another issue is that we were told we would have the guidelines in 2024. It is now 2026. The guidelines were done in 2016. They will be obsolete when they come out because they are ten years old. The wind turbines being installed are not going to be taken down because the new guidelines state that, for the last ten years, the wrong turbines have been erected and they should all be taken down and replaced with smaller ones.

A position paper on wind turbines and public health was done in 2017 but was withdrawn in 2025. The paper claimed that health impacts of wind turbines, such as annoyance, sleep disturbance and headaches, were not supported by evidence. I can only assume that if the paper was withdrawn in 2025, that is no longer the case and it is now believed that wind turbines contribute to these issues.

I ask for a debate in the House. I will also table a Commencement matter on the issue because curtailment is also an issue. Curtailing is dumping, more or less. We dump 1.4 million kW of energy in this country every day because we cannot store it. We are putting up wind turbines left, right and centre and we have nowhere to store the energy. All of that comes at a cost to taxpayers. Taxpayers are paying to dump energy when we have energy poverty all over the country and we are causing stress and strain for communities that have to put up with proposals to build these wind turbines not far from people's houses. The health risks and annoyance wind turbines cause, and even just the look of them, mean people do not want them stuck next to their houses. It will drive down the cost of their houses. Householders will be in negative equity, if they are ever able to sell their house. They probably will not be able to sell them. Who wants to buy a house next to a wind turbine? I ask for a debate in the House. There are a lot of holes in this and a lot of issues we need to tease out.