'We can't depend on Trump and the boys' - Laois TD pushes for energy self-sufficiency

Laois TD Brian Stanley has said Ireland needs to be more energy self-sufficient as "we cannot depend on Trump and the boys."

Addressing Taoiseach Micháel Martin in the Dáil on Wednesday, March 25, Deputy Stanley asked why the long-promised guidelines on wind turbines have not been published yet and who is blocking it.

The Laois TD previously raised the Wind Turbine Regulation Bill 2025 in the Dáil in November in an effort to move the Government on the issue. 

The response from the Government then was that the department is undertaking a review of the 2006 guidelines, and this continues to be the case. 

"That is the same reply I have been getting for a decade and a half. When I introduced that Bill, the Government said it would bring forward guidelines within three months," Deputy Stanley said. 

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Emphasising the need for such legislation, the Independent TD said: "The Taoiseach, the Government and I all know that, given the subject of debates in the House this week, we need to increase our supply of renewable energy and to become more energy self-sufficient. We cannot depend on Trump and the boys."

He added: "Who is blocking it? We need to sort it out. It cannot take 15 years to get guidelines in place."

The Taoiseach responded to say that when these guidelines emerge, it "will probably lead to a reduction in the number of wind farms."

"We cannot dress it up and say that the guidelines will help to expand the supply of onshore wind energy because all of the impetus from Deputies and others has been aimed at restricting the growth of onshore wind farms," Micháel Martin said.

He urged that offshore wind farms is what the country should focus on for the next decade and that we have a "huge challenge" in terms of energy independence.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme