DEAR SIR:

The authors of the Wind Aware report The Costs of Wind Energy in Ireland reported in last week’s Irish Farmers Journal have done us all great service in preparing and launching this meticulously researched and cogently argued report, a report of which Colm McCarthy wrote: “It should not have been left to this voluntary group to raise these vital policy questions”.

Policy questions that are vital to the wellbeing of everybody on this island.

Policy questions which the report shows Government departments have avoided and continue to avoid – resulting in ineffective policies that have been implemented without ascertaining whether less costly pathways to CO2 emission reduction are available because they were thought to be the easy option – low-hanging fruit.

I call on our public representatives to demand that the authorities pause and carry out a full socioeconomic benefit assessment of our renewable energy policies before, as a nation, we irrevocably commit to what the report shows to be an expensive white elephant. Before the EU forces us to carry out other measures that cripple our agriculture and factories because we have failed to curb CO2 emissions with our ineffective policies to date.