An urgent review of Irish energy policy needs to take place after news of the recent 300 million Euro sale of Invis Energy, a Cork based firm, who sold a majority share of their wind farm business to a Japanese company.
We have been repeatedly been told by our Ministers that we will have to stop buying dirty fossil fuels from other countries and develop our own energy sources. In this instance we can see what is behind the wind industry which is big money and big business and the way things are going there will be no money kept in Ireland from this business. The industry is heavily subsidised already and there was no comment from any Minister on last weeks’ sale. It is estimated that by 2020, a total of 2.7 billion Euro will have been invested in the wind industry alone here in Ireland. The question I would ask is how much of that will remain in Irish hands and how much of it will be owned by big foreign investors in the future.
We have to take a serious look at where our energy policy is going in this country, the wind industry in particular, and it’s value for money to the Irish taxpayer. We have to have a serious debate on this whole issue in the very near future.
