DEAR SIR:

The Irish Farmers Journal has been very good to me in publishing my letters over the years but there comes a time when it’s time to take a break. Either the penny has dropped by now or there will be no penny to drop.

The present plans for adding more and more capacity to generate electricity no one wants and no one can use is driving our electricity prices to the highest in the world. It will cut farming margins to a point where production cannot be sustained. The same will happen in other manufacturing. Recently, Mayo County Council granted planning permission for three wind farms and put a condition that a contribution of a total of €1.5m must be made to them before work commences. This will have to be recouped from consumers. It is a mystery to me why the public and their representatives readily understood the cash for ash scam in Northern Ireland, yet they don’t come to the same conclusion about other sources of renewable energy. We need 6,000mw of traditional generating capacity to provide round-the-clock power at the click of a switch. We now have 8,500mw of fossil fuel capacity and 3,000mw of wind-generating capacity, bringing the total to 11,500mw. Plans are in place for 15,000mw and an extra 3,000mw for export to the UK.

Exported electricity will require massive subsidies in the producing country to bring the quality of the power up to the standard of the UK.

British consumers are facing a surcharge of £100 just to keep the lights on using diesel generators. An annual traditional bill of €5,000 will rise to €15,000 plus the cost of maintaining the reinforced grid and all the administration costs could see the bill increased up to four times or €20,000. The PSO levy has doubled here over the past year. I say it’s a scam and I am available to debate, but until policy makers feel rejected by voters it will continue. Bye for now.