The Department of Housing has said there are currently no plans to introduce specific guidelines on how solar farms should be developed in Ireland.

In a recent parliamentary question, Fine Gael TD for Cork East David Stanton asked if there were plans for a national overview and said that the deployment of thousands of solar panels changes the visual aspect of the countryside and it can have other effects, such as on wildlife, biodiversity, flooding risk and food production.

The large majority of development types currently have no specific planning guidelines in place in respect of solar energy developments, Minister of State Ossian Smyth said in response to the question.

Deputy Stanton added that more and more rural communities are discovering that the green productive fields in their areas are being earmarked for solar farm development.

Best practice

He said that the best practice planning guidance report, prepared in conjunction with the Irish Solar Energy Association, is very good and addresses all of the above points, but the State has not done so.

"It is not mandatory or obligatory for any company or developer to follow these guidelines even though they should," Deputy Stanton argued.

If national guidelines are not in place, he said that the same problems will occur that the wind turbine industry ran into.

"We ran into the same problems there because we left a vacuum of information and we did not engage with people.

"I ask the Minister of State to go back and tell the Department of Housing that we need to get this in place. Each local authority has its own set of guidelines, but it is ad hoc and there is no national overview. This is happening as we speak.

"More and more of these farms are being constructed and more and more communities are becoming concerned and are protesting and we do not want to see that," he said.