North Mayo wants to see benefits of wind energy

A Belmullet councillor has said no more windmills are wanted in North Mayo until such time as the local community benefits from energy being produced from these facilities.

Speaking at last week’s meeting of Mayo County Council, Fine Gael Cllr Gerry Coyle said North Mayo is getting none of the energy it is producing.

"There is too much being exported. The most time the wind was blowing last year - and windmills spinning around - a woman next door to them was without electricity for six or seven days.

“So we have had enough of the windmills. I am told 40% of energy being generated now is from wind energy but did our prices come down because as far as I know the price of wind didn’t go up.

“It seems the energy regulator decided to push up the price, and it now plans to make Oweninny [in North Mayo] the biggest windmill site in Ireland. Well, unless we start getting benefits from it in Erris, we don’t want any more windmills. I don’t object to projects much but the ones I back are those that bring benefits to the people of Mayo.” 

Holding up his mobile phone, Cllr Coyle also told the chamber: “You know, I cannot get calls at night to my home on this phone, only messages on WhatsApp. I have rung the service provider, and they say, change your pin, get a new card, do something else. Even today with a new phone and a new service I will probably only have one or two bars on it because we have no connectivity in North Mayo.

“We want our fair share of the cake. If we are producing the energy, we want to be able to benefit from it.”