The European Commission is taking Ireland back to the Court of Justice of the EU for its failure to comply with part of the Court judgment of 3 July 2008 (C-215/06, Commission v Ireland), by not properly carrying out an environmental impact assessment for the Derrybrien wind farm in County Galway in Ireland.

Although the Derrybrien wind farm was constructed already more than 13 years ago, no sufficient impact assessment has been carried out. Such impact assessment of certain public and private projects on the environment is required under the EU rules before construction is allowed to commence.

The scale of the development and its sensitive moorland hilltop location means that its operation continues to have an impact locally. The site could still benefit from mitigation and remediation measures, but these can only be identified after an environmental impact assessment has been done. Ireland must, therefore, ensure that this happens.