It began with a clash: a Norwegian wind company versus a local county council’s ban on turbines. But the battle over Coolglass Wind Farm has become a question of who decides Ireland’s future: the courts or the Government?
In August 2023, Statkraft applied to build 13 wind turbines in Timahoe, Co Laois. A year later, An Bord Pleanála (now An Coimisiún Pleanála) refused the application. The reason? Laois County Council had designated the area as “not open for consideration” for wind farms.
Statkraft were having none of it. They fought back and made the argument in the High Court that the council had ignored its obligations under climate law, which said public bodies should act in accordance with climate objectives – in this case, Ireland’s goal of generating onshore wind energy. Could climate law trump what local councils wanted?
In January 2025, Judge Richard Humphreys of the High Court delivered his judgment, finding in favour of Statkraft. Climate law, he ruled, was powerful enough to override a local council’s ban. For the first time, an Irish court said clearly: the climate emergency and our need to decarbonise and generate renewable energy trump ideas about keeping turbines out of view.
The judgment forced An Bord Pleanála to wrestle with future decisions. What were they to do? Should climate law be one consideration among many – local concerns, nature restoration, community wishes? Or should it nearly always win? Should developments causing emissions – be they wind farms, hospitals, schools or housing – be refused? The ramifications for development were huge.
Take, for instance, a bog. This natural feature can do something almost no other ecosystems can – a triple function that is potentially of enormous benefit. Bogs absorb and slowly release floodwater during increasingly chaotic winter inundations, provide a home for critically endangered species and lock away vast quantities of carbon. Should they be drained and developed as industrial wind farms? Is our need for renewables greater than our need to restore nature?
In May 2025, the Statkraft case was in the Supreme Court. Last month, the seven judges issued their verdict: Humphreys was right to quash the refusal for the wind farm, and climate law does create real obligations. But they disagreed on how much discretion planners should keep. Humphreys saw near black-and-white: climate law should almost always require approval of renewables. The Supreme Court saw shades of grey and effectively said: not so fast.
The Coolglass judgment’s value lies in what it acknowledges: the climate law isn’t a solution for Ireland’s climate policy failures
It’s not like a traffic light, the judges said, where climate automatically gives the green light. Instead, climate law forms a “wider framework” of planning considerations. Planners must genuinely engage with climate objectives, but they can still refuse permission if they explain their reasoning with reference to climate goals.
It’s not a subtle difference – it has significant consequences. Climate law isn’t a silver bullet, nor is it just one factor among many. It really matters. But so do other genuine policy concerns, such as protecting nature and listening to communities.
And so we get to the real crisis: Ireland’s land-use policy is a fragmented, siloed, splintered mess. We have national-level planning frameworks, county-level plans, biodiversity rules, and European nature directives from the 1990s that don’t even mention climate change. In many ways, it’s like having five different-shaped maps of Ireland, none of them relating to each other in any meaningful, coherent way. Departments of Housing, Agriculture and Climate work separately; the EU level mirrors the same silos. In this thicket, the courts have essentially said: this isn’t a legal problem, it’s a political and policy one.
[ Plan to slash legal costs in environmental cases is against EU law, say lawyersOpens in new window ]
It will take strong leadership to develop a coherent, whole-of-State land policy. It will involve asking hard, deep questions: where should development happen? Where should we farm? Where should renewables go? Where should nature be restored? What is the trade-off between the near infinite demand for green energy from AI and data centres? Can we afford both?
Should we accelerate offshore wind, which is slow and expensive, or focus onshore, which is faster but more disruptive? How do we balance competing interests and trade-offs so local communities aren’t worn out and worn down by battling planning decisions, which so many communities are?
At the moment, we are stumbling through development, and when things get too hot, we turn to the courts to decide. But such decisions really shouldn’t be for judges. We inhabit a small island – we need an overarching national policy based on evidence, data and a judgment about what is fair and reasonable for local communities. Ecologists can tell us where wind farms can be built without ruinous environmental damage. Engineers can assess grid stability. Our elected Government needs to make decisions – and make tough, coherent arguments for them. This isn’t simple – nobody could argue that – but it is essential if we want to get to where we need to go.
The Coolglass judgment’s value lies in what it acknowledges: the climate law isn’t a solution for Ireland’s climate policy failures. As barrister Dr Alison Hardiman of Philip Lee’s Climate and Environment practice has observed, it would be “ambitious to think that one legal provision could be a silver bullet, when what is required is brave and visionary policymaking, and that is an enormous task for Government. It is not easy. Nothing easy about it.”
Without that, we’ll spend the next decade in courts while communities exhaust themselves fighting planning battles. Ireland doesn’t have time for that.
