Offaly County Council holds 'very positive' Wind Farm meeting with Minister
‘any money we get from the Community Benefit Fund will be put back into improving the county’
OFFALY COUNTY COUNCIL last month held what it called “a very positive meeting” with Darragh O'Brien, the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment, over the subject of Wind Farms.
The Council is keen to make as much income as it can from the Wind Farms in Offaly, for the benefit of the county, pointing out that over the next 50 years Offaly could claim €50 million from the Wind Farm Companies Fund.
For the last several months Cllr John Leahy has repeatedly pointed out that Offaly is not getting anywhere near the results it should be getting from the Wind Farm companies' Community Benefit Fund (CBF).
Cllr Leahy points out that at the moment the CBF is worth €2 per hour per every Megawatt produced on each individual Wind Farm in Offaly. Offaly is currently producing 565MWs of energy per hour.
“As it stands,” he remarked, “the Community Benefit Fund is not resulting in anything really substantial in the county. Yes, it's benefitting many community groups with €1,000 here, €3,000 there, and so on, but our vision is still too narrow in the county and we are not benefitting from it as much as we could be. In effect a lot of the CBF money is being hoarded by the Wind Farm companies and I am worried that if we don't draw it down in the near future then in 20 years or so we will lose it. It's great that community groups are getting the funding but the big projects are not happening.”
The Councillor pointed out that Offaly is producing a staggering 10% of the total energy for the national grid and should receive a greater reward for being so good.
He said the Council hired BDO Consulting to advise them on how to proceed, with one of the aims being to use the CBF to buy new land banks across the county for the creation of new factories, new industries. The Council wants to see the CBF benefit community groups (within the current radius of 25 kilometres from each individual Wind Farm), Near Neighbours (those living in close proximity to the Wind Farms), and to also create more employment in the county.
Cllr Leahy praised the vision of people like Cllr Eamon Dooley and the people of Ferbane who, in conjunction with the ESB, established the West Offaly Fund in the early noughties following the loss of about 100 jobs after the closure of the ESB power station. This was a €3m fund and it led to the creation of the Ferbane Business and Technology Park, which has been a very successful venture.
“Following the government's decarbonisation programme and the loss of many jobs,” commented Cllr Leahy, “the county needs more job creation and deserves something similar to the West Offaly Fund of the early noughties. BDO have told us that €50 million could be tapped from the Community Benefit Fund over the next 15 to 20 years, we could put that into a pot and, in conjunction with community groups and Wind Farm companies, could intelligently administer that pot, creating major infrastructural projects that will hugely benefit the county. I am thinking of the 65 acre Business and Technology Park in Tullamore or the creation of more serviced land for industry in Birr."
During the Spring the Councillors met with BDO Consulting, after which BDO presented them with a paper on the matter. The Councillors have since brought this matter to the attention of the TDs and on July 8 they brought it to the attention of Minister Darragh O'Brien when a number of the Council's members met the Minister in his Dublin offices.
The Chief Executive of the Council Eoghan Ryan gave an update to the members during the July monthly meeting in Áras an Chontae. “We prepared a draft document, which we presented to the Minister. We had a very positive meeting with him. He was highly complimentary of our report and assured us of his full support. Next we are going to meet with the Chief Executive of Wind Energy Ireland.”
Cllr John Leahy told the meeting that this was “very big news for Offaly. This positive news is the result of a lot of hard work by us. We put a lot of effort into this report and we have done a lot of lobbying on the matter. Our work started 18 months ago. The fact the Minister is now favourably disposed to the report is very positive news for us and for the County as a whole, because any money we get from the Community Benefit Fund will be put back into improving the county.”