Ireland’s 2006 Wind Energy Development Guidelines remain the primary legal framework for assessing onshore wind farm proposals, despite being nearly two decades old. While the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has produced multiple draft revisions between 2013 and 2024, none have been formally adopted or enacted into law. Micheál Martin, Corkman and our current Taoiseach, raised concerns in the Dáil Leader’s Questions about outdated guidelines and the lack of regulations for large-scale wind energy, which leads to inadequate protection for public health and the environment. This concern has grown exponentially and still persists in 2025 – as no new guidelines have since been enacted into law.
These outdated guidelines fail to account for the massive increases in turbine size, noise output, shadow flicker and landscape dominance that have occurred over the past 20 years. The 2006 rules contain no prescribed setback distances, no upper height limit and only vague reference to cumulative visual or environmental impact, leaving rural communities exposed to disproportionate and aggressive wind farm expansion. Under these obsolete standards, developers continue to exploit legal loopholes and a permissive policy environment to push through large-scale projects in areas of high scenic and natural beauty.
This is blatantly evident in the latest proposal by Enerco Energy to construct at least 14 industrial turbines, each 169 metres tall (more than two and a half times the height of the Elysian building in Cork city) on the Maughanaclea Hills near Bantry, West Cork. This large -scale project is at the pre-application consultation stage and is yet to be concluded with An Bord Pleanála as a Strategic Infrastructure Development (SID). The affected areas includes the communities of Kealkill, Coomclogh, Cousane and the Mealagh Valley – regions widely recognised for their outstanding natural beauty, biodiversity and unspoilt landscapes.
Each turbine in the Enerco proposal includes rotor blades spanning over four acres, with ground-to-blade tip heights towering over sensitive upland habitats, rivers, and historic rural settlements. These gigantic industrial machines would never have been contemplated in 2006 when the Guidelines were drawn up, but remain legally permissible in 2025 because Government after Government has failed in their duty to the citizens of Ireland to bring any new legislation into law.
Communities across Ireland are now bearing the brunt of a planning system outpaced by technology, with no statutory protections in place to reflect the real-world scale and impact of contemporary wind farms.
Ireland’s 2006 Wind Energy Development Guidelines remain the primary legal framework for onshore wind farms in 2025. A series of draft revisions have been drawn up over the years covering noise, setback, shadow-flicker, landscape, habitats, re-powering and heritage, but none have been formally enacted into law. Since no new guidelines have been enacted, the 2006, rules remain in full force. However, new technology, turbine size and rotor blade span have evolved significantly.
Now, the community of Maughanaclea has launched a grassroots campaign: ‘Stop The Spin’. They are urgently raising funds through a GoFundMe to strengthen their objections to An Bord Pleanála and to commission independent expert reports on the impact on human health, wildlife, archaeology, heritage, landscape and tourism.
The community is asking the public to raise this issue with their local TD’s, to make submissions to An Bord Pleanála when the formal application is lodged, support the campaign through GoFundMe and spread the message …………’Stop The Spin’.
Email: info@stopthespin.ie
Website: www.stopthespin.ie
GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/1e41fd
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Media Contact: Noëlle Aller Ontalba
086 806 7474
