The 'Greenwire' project: UK Tories plan to outsource wind power energy to Ireland

[PaddyJoe]

Interesting angle on wind power in the UK Independent today. It seems that there's a lot of opposition to the construction of wind power farms across the water.
Obviously the sensible way around that is to get the placid ould Paddies to generate it and then get it back over to the mainland. A US company called Element Power seems to be the main backer.
Ingenious

Ministers are investigating a proposal to outsource the production of wind power to Ireland.

Faced with fervent and growing opposition to onshore wind farms in the UK, Tory MPs are backing a plan to site those facilities in Ireland

A company has already sourced land to build more than 700 turbines in countryside to the west of Dublin. They would have the capacity to supply power for more than three million homes by the end of the decade – the equivalent of 10 per cent of the UK's renewable energy targets.

Earlier this year the Irish Energy Minister, Pat Rabbitte, and his UK counterpart, Charles Hendry, agreed a formal Memorandum of Understanding on renewable energy trading between the two countries to be in place by the end of the year. Such an agreement would need to be written into the Energy Bill currently going through Parliament.

The company has met Ed Davey, the Climate Change Secretary, and this week will meet a series of Tory ministers and MPs to press its case.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environ...d-8202948.html

[PaddyJoe]

And seen from a slightly different angle:

MINISTER FOR Energy Pat Rabbitte accused United Left Alliance TD Clare Daly of trying to slander an energy company involving former Labour Party members.

Ms Daly had asked the Minister about his plans to enable the State sector, including the ESB, to develop the offshore wind industry. She said she had attended a meeting in Mullingar, Co Westmeath, on Wednesday night at which farmers were asked for sites for wind turbines from Mainstream Renewable Power and other energy groups.

“What does the Minister have to say about this company, headed by former Labour party members Brendan Halligan and Eddie O’Connor, which stands to make substantial profits, potentially tens of billions of euro, from this resource?” she asked.

Mr Rabbitte said he had been involved in discussions for some time with his opposite number in Britain. The objective was to conclude a memorandum of understanding by the end of the year to facilitate export from this island to the neighbouring island.

“Theoretically, it could be a win-win situation if we can generate excess renewable energy in this island and if the neighbouring island has a need for energy and a requirement to meet renewable energy targets,” he added

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...325187728.html

[DCon]

headed by former Labour party members Brendan Halligan and Eddie O’Connor

shocker..

I wonder is Dinny backing them financially. Thhat would be a true win-win!

[fluffybiscuits]

Interesting angle on wind power in the UK Independent today. It seems that there's a lot of opposition to the construction of wind power farms across the water.
Obviously the sensible way around that is to get the placid ould Paddies to generate it and then get it back over to the mainland. A US company called Element Power seems to be the main backer.
Ingenious



http://www.independent.co.uk/environ...d-8202948.html

Two sides of the coin there and thanks for illustrating this. Why is there no talk of the ESB taking over it and selling it to the English instead of this company?

[DCon]

Why is there no talk of the ESB taking over it and selling it to the English instead of this company?

How would this enrich the FOFGAL (Friends of Fine Gael and Labour) who have been waiting patiently while the FOFF got to feed off the State?

[Baron von Biffo]

Have they heard about our...

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

I recall pointing out that Labour Party National Policy Co-ordinator Brendan Halligan was nicely positioned a few years back with directorships (possibly with the above Mainstream) and in a position to affect and gain financially from renewable energy policies.

I'll be watching Halligan around this area for conflict of interest charges. Incidentally this caper also fits neatly into my analysis that certain people in Ireland are in cahoots with interests in the UK to start using Ireland as a UK resource.

I noticed that story in the Guardian about windfarms on the Bog of Allen and across Ireland and didn't notice any discussion about what Ireland would be paid for this energy resource.

I have no objection to a business deal between Ireland and the UK at all. But I do not want to find that Halligan and others like him have sold out another resource for pennies on the pound for the country and a few fat fees for themselves for conning the paddies.

Halligan is the one to watch here and others around him as he has been positioning himself to take advantage of something like this for a few years now.

[disability student]

I recall pointing out that Labour Party National Policy Co-ordinator Brendan Halligan was nicely positioned a few years back with directorships (possibly with the above Mainstream) and in a position to affect and gain financially from renewable energy policies.

I'll be watching Halligan around this area for conflict of interest charges. Incidentally this caper also fits neatly into my analysis that certain people in Ireland are in cahoots with interests in the UK to start using Ireland as a UK resource.

I noticed that story in the Guardian about windfarms on the Bog of Allen and across Ireland and didn't notice any discussion about what Ireland would be paid for this energy resource.

I have no objection to a business deal between Ireland and the UK at all. But I do not want to find that Halligan and others like him have sold out another resource for pennies on the pound for the country and a few fat fees for themselves for conning the paddies.

Halligan is the one to watch here and others around him as he has been positioning himself to take advantage of something like this for a few years now.

That name Brendan Halligan came up often over the years. He could be the link between business and Labour party re policies, donations and his role in European affairs which give rise & concern as to what he as doing there... was it for himself or for Labour?.

His bio:

The first was in politics and started in 1967 when he was appointed General Secretary of the Labour Party ; the next was in business and began 20 years later when he became chairman of Bord na Mona; and the third, which continues apace, is as propagandist and spirited proponent of all (or most) things European.

Born in Dublin and educated at James's Street CBS and Kevin Street College of Technology, Dublin, he had an early career as an economist and worked with the Irish Sugar Company.

But he made his real mark in politics. For two decades he was an intellectual mainspring of the Labour Party and completed a root and branch reorganisation, albeit failing in his aim of "making the Seventies socialist".

He was appointed a Senator in the Seventies and was elected to the Dail in 1976 in a by-election. He stood three times but failed to get back into the Dail again. However, he did serve as an MEP.

In the mid-Eighties he was appointed chair of Bord na Mona and joining with CEO Eddie O'Connor the two men set out to revolutionise the staid institution. But that ended abruptly 10 years later with the publicity-strewn departure of the CEO.

He sat on the Irish Permanent board, but his abiding interest was Europe and he was one of the founders of the Institute for European Affairs which he continues to chair.

In the last few years he has returned to college and is currently working on a BA in Old and Modern Irish in TCD - where he says he's "meeting the best teachers I ever met"

Others links :http://politico.ie/politics/5128-lab...liability.html

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/...carbon-neutral

http://citizensimon.blogspot.ie/2009...a-ireland.html

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...s-2900907.html

http://investing.businessweek.com/re...%20GROUP%20PLC

[DCon]

Halligan's CV

Chairman of IIEA
Chairman of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland
Managing Director of CIPA - a public affairs consulting company
Adjunct Professor of European Affairs (UL),
Honorary Doctorate of Letters (UCD).
Former Chairman of Bord na Móna
Former Member of the European Parliament
Former TD
Former General Secretary of the Irish Labour Party

He founded the Institute of International and European Affairs in 1990, an independent think tank of which he is currently the Chairman. In 2007, Brendan was appointed Chairman of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, a state agency which is charged with promoting the production and use of sustainable energy in Ireland and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. He has acted as a public affairs consultant to Irish and multi-national firms for the past twenty five years. He is also a Director of Mainstream Renewable Power.

http://www.iiea.com/staff/brendan-halligan

Politico have this on him, from #vinb in 1977

But Halligan's liabilities go further back. It was he who fostered the move to the left in the mid and late 'sixties coupled with the rigid anti-coalition stance, "as a matter of principle". Once the harsh political realities were revealed in the election results of 1969, it was Halligan who opportunistically forced the abandonment of the anti-coalition position and of the guts of socialist policy.

Halligan was the Labour personality primarily responsible for agreeing to the 13 point coalition programme, which set the seeds of the coalition's disastrous failure and the undermining of everyything Labour was supposed to stand for in Government.

On his election to the Dail in June '76 Halligan fervently supported the antiisocialist, anti-liberal measures related to Emergency Powers, and he defiled all associations with socialism by his unninformed support for justin Keating's behaviour in the Bula scandal.

Having behaved so dishonourably in Dublin South West and having been rejected at the polls in Finglas, one might have expected him to retire into wellldeserved insignificance, but no. He has since had the audacity to return to the Labour Party headquarters and demand his old job as general secretary back, thereby pushing the diligent and honest Seamus Scally aside.


Irish politics can do without people like Brendan Halligan. He should be thrown out

ONE of Michael D Higgins's closest advisers has denied that he left the Labour presidential candidate's campaign team due to concerns about his past as a lobbyist for the tobacco industry.

Brendan Halligan, a former Labour Party General Secretary, represented cigarette manufacturers throughout the 1990s, spearheading their campaign to fight tax increases and limit restrictions on advertising.

Mr Halligan has denied that his departure from the campaign was due to concerns in the Labour Party over his links to the tobacco industry, insisting he left because he had "other things to do".

But it is Mr Halligan's career outside the Labour Party that has led to questions about his inclusion in Mr Higgins's election campaign.

The 75-year-old non-smoker's company Consultants in Public Affairs represented the Irish Tobacco Manufacturer's Advisory Committee and the Confederation of European Community Cigarette Manufacturersduring the 1990s.

His name appears in more than 120 secret files that the big US tobacco companies were forced to disclose after they settled a class action lawsuit taken by 46 states in the late-1990s.

Asked why he left the campaign he said: "I have other things to do. I never was really on it to be perfectly honest with you."

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...s-2900907.html

[Apjp]

Two sides of the coin there and thanks for illustrating this. Why is there no talk of the ESB taking over it and selling it to the English instead of this company?

Because the ESB is a revenue generating/profit making state body and any such investment which would benefit the public at large is no good to any Irish govt.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Halligan is a particularlty obvious rat in Irish political affairs in my opinion. His personal EU love-fest organisation the Irish Institute for European Affairs has a 'Comite d'Honneur' (if you please) with a right bunch of shysters on it including Bertie Ahern.

That pro-European lobbying unit is based on the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London and charges thousands per annum for subscription to a number of Irish Government departments.

Halligan wants watching alright as he typifies the 'two sides of the mouth' politician while finding ways to enrich himself.

He's a sort of Charlie McCreevy of the 'apparent' Irish left in my opinion.

[fluffybiscuits]

Because the ESB is a revenue generating/profit making state body and any such investment which would benefit the public at large is no good to any Irish govt.

[PaddyJoe]

The UK Daily Mail has an Interesting headline tomorrow. Very much in line with the Greenwire project mentioned in the OP:

[DCon]

Telegraph has announced the death of the wind farm too

[PaddyJoe]

All systems go:

The Irish and British governments are on track to sign up to the first element of a deal next month that will pave the way for electricity exports from the Republic to Britain.

The deal will allow onshore wind farms and offshore plants in the Republic’s waters to plug directly into Britain’s national grid to sell electricity.

A number of players – including Mainstream Renewable Energy, led by Airtricity founder Eddie O’Connor; Element Wind Power, which is backed by US-based Hudson Clean Energy; and Oriel Windfarms, whose investors include Martin Naughton of Glen Dimplex – plan to cash in on such an agreement, should it materialise.

Last September, British prime minister David Cameron replaced Charles Hendry, the minister with whom Mr Rabbitte had been in talks, with John Hayes, who is sceptical about wind power.

The change in personnel proved controversial with the British renewables industry and sparked concerns here that it could affect plans to import wind-generated electricity.

However, the issue has been transferred to the charge of the British government’s secretary of state for energy and climate change, Ed Davey. It is understood that his department supports the plan.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...327040864.html