Carlow People 23-03-2021

carlowpeople highest, most frequent readership in carlow

.ie .ie t: 059 914 1877

November 19, 2019

FREE

12,000 copies

Beer brewery plan goes flat March 23 , 2021

THE Carlow Brewing Company, known as O Hara’s Brewing Company, has suffered a blow to plans for a new brewing and visitor facility in south Dublin after an appeal, made last August, was rejected

by An Bord Pleanala.

The brewery had hoped to develop a new production facility with a visitor area

including viewing platform, bar, restaurant and outdoor seating area on the site, in Sandyford Business Park.

The board upheld the council’s view that the site was zoned under the county development plan to facilitate a series of parks and urban plazas.

The microbrewery, which was established in Bagenalstown,

Co Carlow in 1996, makes the popular O’Hara range of stout, ales and lagers which are named after the family which founded the business. The company said the concept of viewing the brewing process combined with a tasting opportunity was well established. “Providing visitors with a full view of how Carlow Brewing Company creates their

COVID-19 vaccinations are underway, bringing hope to our communities.

As more people are vaccinated, this should help reduce the harm caused by COVID-19.

GPs are currently vaccinating people aged 80 and over.

People aged 75 and over, and then 70 and over will be vaccinated next.

You don’t need to register in advance. As soon as your vaccine is available, your GP will let you know.

We are also making plans to vaccinate people with certain health conditions that put them at very high risk if they get COVID-19.

You do not need to register in advance or take any action at this time. Your healthcare team will contact you when it’s your turn to be vaccinated.

All vaccines are tested before they are approved for use in Ireland.

If you have questions about your COVID-19 vaccine, we have answers you can trust on hse.ie or you can call HSElive on 1850 24 1850.

Visit hse.ie

products while also being able to taste the finished product is an appealing experience for locals and tourists,” it added.

There were no third-party objections to the scheme, but in July last year, the council asked the company to provide additional information regarding issues such as proposed bicycle stands and drainage.

FREE

www.carlowpeople.ie t: 059 914 1877 www.carlowpeople.ie

Garden designer Diarmuid Gavin at the launch of Electric Ireland’s new Home Electric+ plan which helps customers better understand their electricity use. Pic: Andres Poveda

02 |

March 23, 2021

PURE remove 140 tonnes of waste from uplands

OVER 750 individual dumping sites weer cleared of rubbish in 2020, with the collection of over 140,000kg (140 tonnes) of illegally dumped waste from the remote, beautiful, and scenic Wicklow/Dublin Uplands.

This was a 50% reduction compared with 10 years previous, when in 2010 the Pure Project removed 282,000kg (282 tonnes).

The Pure Project is a partnership project which incorporates statutory and non-statutory organisations, including Wicklow County Council, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, South Dublin County Council, Coillte, National Parks & Wildlife Service, and the Wicklow Uplands Council.

The ‘Pure Truck’ is on the road every day, and since the project was established in 2006, Pure has collected over 3,500,000kg (3,500 tonnes) of rubbish from over 12,500 illegal dumping sites in the Wicklow/Dublin Uplands.

To put this in context, if you were to put all the rubbish that Pure has removed from the uplands into standard household rubbish bags, they would fill

over 400,000 bags. And if you lined up all these bags on the road, they would stretch all the way from Dublin to Dingle.

Reflecting on the huge work

Pure does, Ian Davis, Pure Manager, had some positive news: “Illegal dumping is not unique to the Wicklow/Dublin uplands, however, while most

Looking for a tutor?

School Is Easy is here to help you Advertorial As we battle to cope with the restrictions imposed by Covid-19 regulations, home-based learning has taken on a new importance.

Many parents who want their children to enjoy the benefits of one-to-one tuition are, nevertheless, nervous about having a stranger in their home or sending young students to a tuition centre.

School is Easy (SIE) can solve that problem.

We can offer one-to-one or group grinds for Primary, Junior Certificate or Leaving Certificate school students at a time that works for you and your family.

We offer the following subjects, from Primary to Secondary to Specialist Third Level courses: Irish/Gaelige, English, Maths, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, French, German, Spanish, History, Geography, Business Studies, Economics, Design and Technology, Music, and Physical Education .

Going to university and dreading the college exams? No problem, we have skilled and experienced tutors to help every student.

We provide safe, online tutorials that are recorded so that your child can future reference any topic covered.

When you work with SIE, you will get nothing but the best.

All of our tutors have formal education, classroom experience and a passion for teaching.

For senior subjects we use college and university instructors with a Masters degree.

The choice is yours when it comes to the style of tutoring and our range of subjects is broad.

We don’t use generic tutoring lessons. We customise each programme based on the student’s needs, goals and capacity and we take care to match students with the right tutors.

We are easy to work with. We screen tutors for you. We identify learning deficiencies and we get results .

Our certified tutors will provide an initial assessment, if you need it, to ascertain your child’s requirements.

Call us today on 01 556 3553 to book a consulation.

We will be delighted to match you with a tutor.

See our ad on page 3

regions in Ireland are currently reporting an increase in illegal dumping, the Pure Project is seeing a decrease.

“The environmental project

has been recording and mapping every location and incident of illegal dumping in the Wicklow/ Dublin Uplands since 2007 and have built up a base-line-data of all illegal dumping activity

in this region — the location of dumping, type of dumping, landowner, and amount of dumping, and for a number of years now they have been recording an annual reduction.

In 2020, the introduction of Covid-19 travel restrictions prohibited the Pure Mile from organising their clean-ups.

2020 also saw a large increase of visitors to the Wicklow/ Dublin Uplands, and the material removed by Pure, included, hundreds of tents, sleeping bags, blankets, chairs, tables, food items, bottles, cans, and barbecues, all discarded on the landscape.

Another initiative that attributed to the annual decline in illegal dumping is the Pure Covert CCTV Operations, which involved the deployment of a number of CCTV units at several problematic dumping sites.

A number of incidents caught on CCTV are currently under investigation

by Wicklow County Council, and South Dublin County Council, and Pure are confident both of the local authorities will proceed with court prosecutions.

March 23, 2021

|03

04 |

March 23 2021

opinion&comment

You need to be careful what you wish for, Mary Lou ...

S

inn Féin is pushing for a Border poll and, in the run-up to St Patrick’s Day, pressed its case in America with large and expensive newspaper ads, financed by its supporters.

They should be careful what they wish for.

The campaign is based on a correct assumption that the population of Northern Ireland is now equally divided between people from a Catholic background and those with a Protestant heritage. But it is also guided by a flawed analysis of the Brexit vote, and the vote at the last Assembly election, which has led Sinn Féin to believe that a poll would produce a majority in favour of Irish unity. In theory, a wafer-thin majority might be reached with the unanimous support of the Catholic community. In practice that unanimity

Michael Wolsey would be very hard to achieve and, in any case, a wafer-thin majority is not a sensible foundation on which to build a new, united country. That requires a reasonable level of consent from Northern Ireland’s Protestants .

Not all northern Protestants vote for unionist parties and quite a few of them were opposed to Brexit. But almost no northern Protestants vote for nationalist parties and, at the end of what would certainly be a bitter and divisive referendum

debate, very few of them would be voting for Irish unity. Not the unionist voters, obviously.

But not many of the Alliance’s Protestant voters, either. Nor the Independent voters. Nor those who vote for parties of the Left.

And not many of the Protestants who opposed Brexit, regardless of which parties they vote for.

That united front is unlikely to be matched on the Catholic side. In Northern Ireland, unionist-voting Catholics are as rare as nationalist-voting Protestants. But centrist parties like Alliance, and the many shades of Labour, have always drawn a disproportionately large part of their support from the Catholic population. Not all of this electorate would vote for unity.

Sinn Féin banks on a referendum taking place on both sides of the Border and assumes that the majority here will back Irish unity. They are right. But I am not sure it would be an overwhelming majority unless

all-party support is achieved, which seems unlikely if Sinn Féin is leading the charge for the unity campaign.

In any case, it is hard to estimate support for a united Ireland when we have no idea what shape the new State would take. Some people still believe we might simply hoist the Tricolour over Stormont and extend the Republic’s borders around the fourth green field. But then some people believe the world was created six thousand years ago and others believe that a reptilian race is plotting to take it over.

Realists accept that we would have to move towards some sort of federal state. Would it mirror the present arrangement, with Stormont ultimately answerable to the Dáil instead of Westminster? Or would it involve a reshaping of the entire country, with regional parliaments and greater local autonomy?

Would there be different lev-

els of taxation? Different health and education systems? If we are serious about holding a Border poll in the foreseeable future we need to be working on these issues now.

In 1983, Garret FitzGerald’s government set up a New Ireland Forum to do just that. It was stymied by the insistence of Fianna Fáil leader, Charles Haughey, that the only future he could fully support was one based on a simple unitary state, and by the intransigence of Britain’s prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, who refused to countenance any role for Dublin in the governance of Northern Ireland.

But the forum’s real undermining weakness was that it had no input from the unionist community. Northern nationalists were represented, and a few token Prods were coaxed down from Belfast, but no unionists accepted the invitation.

If we want a different out-

come we must find a way to get unionists to the table. I have no idea how this can be achieved. but, then, I am not calling for a Border poll. Sinn Féin is. So what’s your plan Mary Lou? It’s not the most important issue, but a little respect for the people you are addressing would be a step in the right direction. Throughout this article I have referred to ‘Northern Ireland’, the legal name recognised by the Irish and British governments and the Good Friday Agreement.

Neither Ms McDonald nor any of her elected party members seem capable of getting their tongues around those two words. For them it is ‘the north’ or ‘the north of Ireland’ or sometimes ‘the six counties’.

And some of them still refer to our republic as ‘the Free State’.

If we want to build a new, shared Ireland it would be helpful if we could at least share the words for the one we have now.

March 23, 2021

| 05

06 | Householders could save €2,000 on energy bills

Over 24,000 households in the county are missing out on savings of €2,000 in energy costs per year by failing to switch, a survey claims.

Those living in bungalows or detached homes across Ireland can benefit most by trading in their current supplier for a new one, according to the WeSwitchU.ie Index.

The index shows the gap between the cheapest and most expensive plans on the market — with a €2000 annual difference between some dual-fuel plans for these house types.

For semi-detached homes the index reveals savings of €800 for dual-fuel customers (€2,250 versus €1,450 per annum), and €620 for apartment or terracedhouse residents (€1,600 versus €980 per annum).

“Based on average consumption, the index clearly shows that many Wicklow households can potentially slice €2,000 off their bills from a premium annual cost of €5,000 to a net cost of €3,000 with the cheapest provider,” said Brendan Halpin, CEO of WeSwitchU.ie.

“There is huge inertia out there when it comes to switching providers.”

March 23, 2021

15 is average age for student’s first drink

FIFTEEN IS the average age for a first drink in Ireland, a major new study has found.

Over 13,000 students, including pupils from 20 secondary schools across Co Dublin, have participated in Drinkaware’s Junior Cycle Alcohol Education Programme (JCAEP) which was the subject of a three-year study carried out by Maynooth University.

The study, for the first time, tracks 1st to 3rd year students’ experiences of alcohol education in Ireland in real time.

Drinkaware commissioned Maynooth University’s Centre for Mental Health and Community Research to investigate the programme’s effectiveness and, in particular, its goal to delay the age of that first drink.

The programme involves 8-10 lessons delivered on a weekly/fortnightly basis and to date 134 schools have undertaken the programme, including Castleknock Community College, Hansfield ETSS, St Joseph’s of Rush; Fingal Community College, Portmarnock Community

Tesco’s Elizabeth Simpson Smith and photographer Ruth Medjber at the launch of a series of portraits shining a light on some of the frontline heroes who have been recognised for going the extra mile in their local community over the past 12 months. Pic: Naoise Culhane

College; Manor House, Raheny; and Mercy Secondary School, Inchicore.

The report found that as the students progressed through the programme, the proportion who expressed no intention or interest in drinking rose from

30% in 1st year, to 54% in 3rd year.

The findings also show that participation led to substantial improvements in students’ knowledge and understanding of alcohol. Students’ knowledge of the impact of alcohol increased

from 22% pre-programme, to 50% in 3rd year.

A similar increase was found regarding students who reported ‘knowing a lot’ about alcohol’s impact on mental health, which also doubled from 23% preprogramme to 46% in 3rd

year. Furthermore, nearly half (46%) of participating students identified the negative impact of alcohol as a reason why teenagers do not drink.

As the study followed students through their three formative years of secondary school, there was a marked shift across some of the results when comparing 2nd and 3rd year data.

For instance, the some 60% of students who indicated they had never drunk remained fairly stable between 1st and 2nd year, but then decreased sharply by 17% as students went from 2nd to 3rd year.

A disturbing result was that 38% of 3rd year participating students who drink, have already experienced one or more negative effects of alcohol consumption.

Commenting, Sheena Horgan, Drinkaware CEO said: “15 years of age is the average age of the first drink in Ireland. But average doesn’t tell the full story. This study shows how attitudes and behaviours shift markedly across 13 to 15 year olds, meaning alcohol education before this age is vital.”

March 23, 2021

| 07

08 | WILDLIFE

with Justin Ivory

Alexanders the Great!

Alexanders flower heads (Photo Justin Ivory) One of the smells that defines late winter and early spring for me is the pungent, sweet, celery-like smell of Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum).

This plant is significantly more substantial in size and structure than the diminutive stature of our other earlyspring flowers, growing up to 120cm high. Being far from pretty or eye-catching, I guess my love for this plant stems from the fact it is a brilliant early source of food for emerging pollinators.

Alexanders have distinctive dark green, glossy, and toothed trifoliate leaves (a leaf divided into three leaflets).

The greeny-yellow flower heads which appear from February to June, are parasol shaped and consist of 8-12 rays containing many tightly packed tiny flowers. Given the umbrella shape formed by the merging flower bearing rays, it is no surprise to find that this plant belongs to that group of plants known as umbellifers.

Umbellifers, or Apiaceae, is a family of aromatic flowering plants which contains celery, carrot, parsley, hogweed, and fennel, among others.

Apiaceae comes from apium, the Latin word for celery. In late summer and autumn, the flowers give way to globular black fruits.

This plant which originates from the Mediterranean, has strong associations with Alexander the Great and the city of Alexandria. Every part of the plant, also known as horse parsley, is edible. The young flowers heads were pickled like a kind of miniature cauliflower, the spring shoots used like celery, leaves for salads and the thick taproot blanched and used as a winter vegetable. The plant also has many medicinal qualities.

Roman soldiers brought it to the Britain, as they would carry it with them on long journeys as a pot herb, as they could eat the leaves, stems, roots, and buds. It was monks who brought it further west to Ireland and it is often found by the ruins of monasteries, abbeys, and castles.

Alexanders coming into flower (Photo Justin Ivory)

March 23, 2021

ninenottomiss book of the week

tv show of the week

HOROSCOPES

film of the week

Klara and the Sun Kazuo Ishiguro

st patrick’s festival, march 12-17 Oireachtas TV, www.stpatricksfestival.ie

Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell Netflix out now

THE Ishiguro of Never Let Me Go (very hard for him to shake that off despite a multitude of bestsellers before and since) is back with a sci-fi-adjacent tale of an artificial friend named Klara, who is sent to live with a family and be a companion to a preteen girl. Klara narrates the world she encounters through her own very specific lens — something like a combination of the innocence of a toddler and the heightened intelligence and sensitivity of a mature adult. And through the eyes of this unforgettable narrator, the fundamental questions of what it means to be human are asked.

IF you are pining for the parade for the second year running, then at least be comforted by the fact that the St Patrick’s Festival and all the ancillary events can be viewed from the comfort of your own couch this year. More than 100 events will be broadcast globally over six days and nights on St Patrick’s Festival TV (SPF TV), a dedicated online TV channel at stpatricksfestival.ie and simultaneously streaming on rte.ie/culture. Oireachtas TV will broadcast most of St. Patrick’s Festival’s events to over 1.1 million homes across Ireland from March 12th – 17th inclusive.

CHRISTOPHER Wallace, better known by his rap name The Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls, was a Brooklyn born rapper considered one of the greatest rappers of all time, due to his distinctive laidback delivery and often pretty grim and gritty content. In 1996, Biggie was entangled in the East Coast-West Coast hip hop feud. Following the death of rapper Tupac Shakur in September 1996, Biggie was accused of being involved and was murdered on March 9, 1997, in a drive-by shooting in LA at just 24.

Directed by Emmett Malloy, this documentary tells the story of the rise and tragic fall of the Notorious BIG and is a tough but cracking view.

family day of the week RECIPE of the week

family film of the week

AriesBegin a new physical health and fitness phase upon reaching a barrier or obstacle. Review and revamp skills and practices.

TaurusChange directions with a romance, passion or creative endeavor. Express your heart, imagination and artistry.

GeminiMake repairs. Renovate, remodel and tend your garden. Domestic changes require adaptation. Begin a new home and family phase.

CancerA turning point arises around income and finances.

You can find profitable opportunities. Generate positive cash flow.

LeoA new two-week phase in communications, connection and intellectual discovery dawns. Shift the direction of your research.

Organic ‘Liberty Nages’ wine set www.thetaste.ie THEIS stunning set of Organic ‘Liberty Nages’ wines which include a red, a white and a rosé, are made using local Rhône valley grape varieties and grown organically in the southern Rhône valley. The ‘Liberty Nages’ range has no added sulphates, are lower in alcohol (11-12%) and made using natural yeast, so you can be assured of a smooth passage into that land of wine make believe.

The package of six bottles are available for nationwide delivery for just €90. So if you fancy something different, order before March 31st and sit back.

album of the week

moxie Nepali pizza www.rte.ie/lifestyle/recipes/2021/0303/1200613- Available now on Netflix nepali-pizza-recipe/ e DIRECTED by Amy Poehler, Moxie follows INVENTED by Nepalese chef Rachana from Eat shy 16-year-old Vivian (Hadley Robinson) Offbeat, the New York catering company that who has had enough of the misbehaviour at employees refugee cooks no less, these mini- her school, and with help from a new friend (Alycia Pascual-Peña) and her rebellious mum flatbread pizzas are topped with chilli sauce, a tomato and pepper mixture and mozzarella (Poehler), she starts an underground zine and and are a perfect throw-together meal for the starts her own revolution. Aimed at the teens gang on Friday evening after remote working in the house, this is not exactly the family film hell. Don’t let the shopping list of ingredients you want it to be on a Friday lockdown night and is more suited to a sleepover. As a highput you off. Adapt. Easy to do and easy to school movie about the stuff of adolescence clean up after, grab a bottle of anything red — friendship, insecurity, romance, parents with alcohol in it and you’re laughing. who just don’t understand, you get the idea.

Leave ‘em to it.

activity of the week

podcast of the week

VirgoA challenge redirects you and illuminates a new personal direction.

Expand your boundaries.

Turn toward an inspiring possibility.

LibraReview priorities privately.

Balance old responsibilities with new. Meditate on dreams past and future.

Begin an introspective phase.

ScorpioOne door closes and another opens. Friends come and go in your community. Share appreciations, goodbyes and greetings.

SagittariusFinish a project before beginning another professional phase. Focus on current passions. Don’t reveal unfinished plans.

CapricornAn exploration changes. .

Experiment with concepts.

Travel expands your view.

Learn from a master.

kings of leon Ghost Tapes #10

speaking of which www.dublincityartsoffice.ie

MOST good ole Southern rock fans have still to find it in their hearts to forgive the Kings of Leon for ‘Sex on Fire’ — particularly since it came after two of the finest albums in recent memory. And whether this new release will help atone time will tell. They’ve ditched the hair and the facial fluff and are going for a mature look and sound in what Caleb Followill calls a different band. What we get is a more subtle eighth album. ‘Oh, we’re still the greatest/The greatest/The greatest/And you/ Your sex is on fire.’ Still unforgivable.

LORD Mayor of Dublin, Hazel Chu, has launched this new arts and education resource, Speaking of Which, a new book for teachers and students developed by Dublin City Council’s The LAB Gallery and The Dock Arts Centre in Leitrim. This FREE book is a companion piece to Speaking of Which, a series of short filmed interviews with 11 Irish artists who are at different stages in their careers, and is perfect for practical activities in the classroom or art workshops.

grounded with louis theroux www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p089sfrz/episodes/ downloads IF you haven’t dived into Louis Theroux’s lockdown podcast (he prefers grounded over lockdown) then you’re in for a real treat. The much-loved documentary-maker has spent the last 10 months interviewing celebrities he’s always wanted to talk to, from singers and actors to comedians and footballers.

Highlights come by way of his insightful interviews with Oliver Stone, Frankie Boyle, Ruby Wax and Gail Porter.

AquariusThe stakes could seem high.

Shift directions with shared finances over the next few weeks. Work out the next phase together.

PiscesReach a turning point with a partnership. Compromise and collaborate for shared commitments. Adjust to a change in plans.

March 23, 2021

| 09

10 |

March 23, 2021

opinion&comment

The last thing we need are rising interest rates

R

ecent warnings from Leo Va r a d k a r and Paschal Donohue about the possibility of interest rate rises may have been a bit previous, but need to be listened to nonetheless.

There’s nothing more sobering than a warning about the possibility of an adverse economic climate.

Interest rates won’t be rising anytime soon, thankfully; hence the warnings alluded to above being a bit like crying wolf. Central banks in both the EU and the US have indicated they will keep interest rates low for the next year or two, so as not to hamper the much-needed recovery post-COVID. The recent concern stemmed from the US where bond rates

have risen due to big stimulus packages and successive rounds of quantitative easing. However, the stimulus packages have been to keep economies going during COVID, and conditions for growth will be needed even more through 2021 and 2022 to ensure that recoveries domestically and globally are as sharp as possible.

So, what are Leo and Paschal at? Really they are just signalling to people that we cannot keep increasing government borrowing indefinitely because when interest rates do rise the cost of servicing the national debt will rise in tandem. They are reminding us of that old adage that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

The government have been right to borrow to cover the costs of COVID, and our favourable economic situation

Caoimhe May at the launch of Sport Ireland’s Adolescent Girls Get Active Research Report, which was undertaken to discover how to encourage teenage girlsto take part in regular physical activity. Pic: Ryan Byrne

coming into the pandemic allowed us to borrow at competitive rates. A sharp recovery [remember all that talk about a

‘V-shaped’ recovery last year, when be all became amateur economists as well as armchair immunologists?] will allow our

credit rating with international lenders to remain healthy, ensuring we will get the best borrowing rates even if rates do

rise in the medium term.

I grew up through eras of double-digit inflation and punitive interest rates. These conditions constantly hampered economic growth. Thankfully these conditions receded into modern times, largely thanks to a concerted effort from the EU to keep rates low.

Back in the day people generally borrowed less for their mortgage, relative to their income. This allowed people to ride out the storm during periods of increased interest rates.

Things would be very different now if interest rates rose significantly, due to the huge amounts our generation generally borrow to buy houses. Interest rate rises must be avoided at all costs, and if they can’t be avoided they must be minimised.

- Brian Quigley

| 11

March 23, 2021

We take a look back at extracts from old newspapers to see what was in the news this month in years gone by

Freemans Jrn 11/03/1853

Irish Press 14/03/1970

Evening Her 29/03/1939

Irish Press 14/03/1963

Freemans Jrn 07/03/1851

Irish Press 05/03/1971

12 |

wicklowvoice.ie March 23, 2021

An introduction to the Codling Wind Park project Together with an excellent team of 40 people with expertise across a range of technical, environmental and social disciplines, we are currently in the early stages of planning what could be Ireland’s flagship offshore wind project. Throughout 2021 we will be undertaking a range of site investigation works and offshore surveys to help us prepare an environmental impact assessment of the proposed project. This will be in preparation for a planning application, which we hope to submit at the end of this year or early next year.

Dear community members, I would like to begin by introducing myself. My name is Arno Verbeek and I am Project Director for the Codling Wind Park project, a proposed offshore wind farm approximately 13km off the coast of Wicklow, between Greystones and Wicklow Town.

“It is important to us that you, the local communities, are involved in the project and help us to shape it.”

questions and provide your feedback to us, which is most important. Below you will find specific details on the timings and ways of accessing this engagement and consultation process.

Though nationally significant, Codling Wind Park will also be a local project and it is important to us that you, the local communities, are involved in it and help us to shape it.

This is the first of many opportunities you will have to see how our project is progressing and to share your feedback with us. As Covid-19 restrictions ease in the months ahead, we hope to return to face-to-face meetings and to also have physical exhibitions at a range of local venues. I look forward to meeting with many of you as part of these future engagements.

Codling Wind Park is at the start of its journey. I hope you will be part of this journey with us so that together we can create something that benefits Wicklow and Ireland for generations to come.

Codling Wind Park could provide enough locallyproduced, low-cost renewable electricity to power the equivalent of up to 1.2 million Irish homes.

This will make a significant contribution to the Irish Government’s commitment to generating 70 per cent of Ireland’s electricity from renewable energy by 2030. It will also go a long way towards enhancing Ireland’s energy security, by reducing our dependence on imported energy.

As we progress this work, we will be engaging regularly and openly with local communities and providing several opportunities for you to view our plans and provide feedback. I am writing this letter to you today to make you aware that the first of these opportunities is about to begin.

Virtual Codling Wind Park Exhibition

Codling Wind Park Webinars

Information Clinics

Accessible via the project website, www.codlingwindpark.ie, this online exhibition will contain a number of exhibition boards with information about different aspects of the project.

It will also contain some useful visuals, such as a map of the project site and early stage, indicative photomontages of the wind turbines from a range of coastal locations, and information for you to download and read at a later date. Finally – and most importantly – it will contain a feedback survey, through which you can provide us with your thoughts on the project to date.

During these two webinars, senior representatives of the project will provide a live online presentation of different aspects of the project. Those who attend will be able to submit questions via the chat box in the webinar and as many of these questions as possible will be answered during the live session.

We realise that having viewed the virtual exhibition, you may have some questions. To discuss these, members of the project team will be available for virtual calls with individuals and organisations between March 15 and March 27.

This will be live from Monday, March 1 and will run until Sunday, March 14.

Details on how to register are available on our website, www.codlingwindpark.ie.

For a four-week period starting on Monday, March 1, you will be able to learn more about the project, ask

The webinars will take place on the following dates: Tuesday March 9: 7–8pm Thursday March 11: 7–8pm

Yours faithfully,

Arno Verbeek Arno Verbeek Project Director Codling Wind Park

Appointments – including some in the evening and at the weekend – can be booked using our online calendar on www.codlingwindpark.ie.

To book by phone, call our Community Liaison Officer Liz Dillon on 087 101 1473.

generating a greener Ireland codlingwindpark.ie.