At yesterday’s full meeting of Kildare County Council, the Fianna Fáil group pushed through a motion calling for a minimum setback distance on wind turbines of 10 times tip height, to be incorporated into the county development plan and applied to future developments including the Maighne wind farm, application for which is being made for dozens of turbines in North West Kildare. Whilst the motion is controversial and was resisted by officials, we felt it was imperative we send a strong signal to the industry that the proposals are not acceptable and to government that we will wait on the guidelines no longer. Click to read more and full text of our motion. #kildare  

Speech on exorbitant variable rate mortgages at Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis. #kildare  

I spoke on a motion condemning the exorbitant rates of interest charged by Irish banks on variable rate mortgages. They are paying well above the odds of similar products across the eurozone and families will pay on a €300k variable rate mortgage up to €6k more interest per annum currently than tracker mortgage holders. Political pressure must be brought on the state owned banks to correct this. #kildare