The Mayo News reports a new planning application for a wind farm at Bellacorick. With the Bellacorick peat-burning plant in North Mayo due to close in the next two years, with the loss of more than 250 jobs, the majority of local people are hoping that the green light will be given for the development of a wind farm in the area. The farm would be the biggest land-based wind farm in Europe and its 200 or so turbines would contribute more than 300 MW of power to the national grid, doubling Ireland’s current wind energy output. It would provide enough energy for more than 200,000 homes and meet about 7 per cent of the country’s energy needs. The project promoters regard the area as ideal for a large wind farm because of what it terms its strong steady winds.

Thousands of acres of peat bog have been cut away and burned in the Bellacorick power station over the years producing a relatively small amount of electricity. The bog is gone never to return so why not use the region for power production from another one of nature’s gifts – the wind. The bog came from the rain and the wind in the first place so there is a certain amount of continuity in putting in another set of turbines to join the 20 or so that are there already. The local and not-so local objectors will of course be out in force but they can’t really claim that this is a pristine untouched landscape – it is effectively already an industrial landscape scarred beyond belief. So build the things and help to stop climate change.

The Mayo News editorial last week says that any hopes which RTE might have entertained for another hike in the licence fee seem to have been well and truly scuttled by the Government this week. The Minister for Communications, Mr. Ahern, has made it clear to the Authority that, while an increase in line with inflation might be acceptable, anything more was out of the question.

The editorial describes the public as being hostile towards RTE. Perhaps so, but nowadays is there anything that we are not hostile to? We are hostile to poor medical services but we are even more hostile to paying enough tax to fund a better health service. Ditto with RTE: people complain about their programmes but they complain even more if we have to pay for them in line with inflation. TV3 shows what a not-public service TV channel based on advertising revenue only can do - and it’s not a pretty sight! Ditto for commercial US TV – pretty ghastly. I don’t know. I just hooked up to multi-channel TV for the first time last year so perhaps I can’t talk, having relied on RTE and later TG4 since the first time I purchased a TV. The interesting thing, however, is that since I hooked up to multi-channel-deflector-land, the number of times I have actually watched anything on BBC or ITV is really minimal. Channel 4 the odd time (must admit to watching sex and the city and they did have some good coverage on the Iraqi war!). I don’t see the point of watching British TV news. It’s not as if they sneeze and we catch cold any more? I am a big fan of the BBC World Service on radio though, which gives really good international news and lots of quirky stuff that keeps the brain ticking over. I recently heard Alistair Cook talking about the impression that Katherine Hepburn made upon him when he first met her some 70 years ago at the age of 25! I heard this relayed on national public radio in the US. But am I the only to notice that RTE always shows the major film releases first – well before ITV, BBC or Channel 4? I know I have seen them years before anyway either in the cinema or on video but it’s nice to see gems like High Fidelty tonight again free to air as they say. But I guess if you don’t watch films and like to watch soaps about English people than you are limited to simulcast of the Street on RTE? Then I have never watched a single episode of Coronation Street either so who am I to judge eh?