Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): You are all very welcome: Professor Alun Evans, Dr Dan Kane, Mr Owen McMullan and Mr Pat Swords. I remind everyone that the session is being recorded by Hansard and will go into our report. I am pleased to meet you all again. This is really the final stage of our inquiry. We are meeting you, and then we will meet the Northern Ireland Renewables Industry Group. After that, we will consider writing up and making conclusions and recommendations of our reports.

You are very welcome. If you can give us a briefing of five to 10 minutes, I am sure members will have questions to ask you.

Dr Dan Kane (Windwatch NI): Thank you, Madam Chairman. It is good to be back to meet you. Bearing in mind the time issue, we want to concentrate on areas that, perhaps, would be of particular help to the Committee. As we see it, there is the large problem, and then there are the symptoms of the problem, which are the issues of noise, shadow flicker and how PPS 18 is applied. Therefore, we want to commence with Mr Pat Swords, who will talk about the legal framework of the whole issue. We feel that it is crucial that we get across why we feel there is an illegality here and how it will impact on the whole situation.

Mr Pat Swords (Windwatch NI): I prepared eight or nine slides in advance. I think you have them. I am a fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and a chartered environmentalist. I have worked in industry, both in Ireland and abroad, for 25 years. From about 1999, I spent a considerable time, and am still doing it —

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Members, the slides start on page 309.

Mr Swords: I spent a considerable period of time — probably 25% of it — in eastern Europe. I helped to bring in the EU's environmental legislation, particularly on pollution control and major accident hazards, training the administration, industry, NGOs and groups on their rights. I come from a unique background.

The second slide is basically the 20% renewable target that the European Union has through the 2009 directive. What was to be built, where it was to be built, the impacts and the mitigation measures were never worked out. You can read and recycle the introduction to the directive. It tells you how they got the 20% target. They shared it out amongst the member states, based on the existing levels of renewables and a fudge factor based on gross domestic product. Ireland got 16%. We do not have a lot of hydro. The UK got 15%, and Austria, which has a load of hydro, got 34%. That is where it came from. Normally, a directive takes two or three years. In this case, it was rushed in within a year. It had to rush in the national renewable energy action plans (NREAPs), which had to be adopted by June 2010. At that stage, all the legally binding environmental assessments and public participation were bypassed.

We are a democracy, so citizens have to be given rights. The environment does not belong to the state; it belongs to the citizens, and they have to be given robust procedural rights. That was recognised in the United Nations Rio declaration of 1992. Environmental issues are best handled with participation of all concerned citizens at the relevant level. At national level, each individual should have appropriate access to information concerning the environment that is held by public authorities, and the opportunity to participate in decision-making processes. Finally, you have to have effective access to judicial and administrative proceedings, including redress and remedy. That was the goal.

In the European Union, the greater area, which is the United Nations economic commission for Europe, stretches out into central Asia and non-EU member states. We have a thing called the Aarhus convention, which has been part of European law since 2005. Basically what happened was that all of the Rio declaration was codified into a legal act and adopted. It is based on access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters. Some of the European Union legislation was changed, but it does not matter — the core principles that are not specifically written in are still binding.

I saw what I can only describe as a completely dysfunctional programme to plaster the Republic of Ireland with 3,000 turbines and 6,000 kilometres of high voltage lines. It had never been through any assessment. I was not in a position to challenge in the courts in Ireland because of the cost, and Ireland would not ratify the convention. Ireland was the only member state that did not have it. However, it was part of European law, and as I had documented all of the issues, the United Nations took a case in my name in which it investigated the European Commission. On 16 August 2012, the compliance committee to the legal tribunal in Geneva ruled that the EU did not comply with the provisions of the convention in connection with its 20% renewable energy by 2020 programme and its implementation throughout the 27 member states through the national renewable energy action plans. It had never put the necessary structures in place to carry out the assessments, engage with the public and provide the information to the public.

I was also involved, as the next slide relates, in a Scottish communication back in Geneva. I helped present it, with the community council up in Scotland. We took in the European Union and the United Kingdom again. The ruling came out, again, that the United Kingdom's national renewable action plan did not comply with the public participation requirements of article 7 of the convention. Article 7 of the convention is the assessment to the planner programme. The necessary information was not provided to the public, and the public was provided with no opportunity to engage in public participation with this plan or programme before it was adopted by the United Kingdom. So there were two rulings. Those are from the compliance committee.

I move now to the compliance mechanisms. There is a meeting of the parties, which is when all 47 countries that have ratified the convention come in. It occurred in July 2014 in Maastricht. Once the findings and recommendations of the compliance committee are endorsed by the meeting of the parties, they are a binding part of international law which, de facto, is community law and national law. As I said in relation to the first case against the European Union, it expressed its concern on whether a proper regulatory framework and/or clear instructions for implementing article 7 of the convention with respect to the adoption of the national renewable energy action plans were carried out. It remained unclear how the party concerned will adapt the manner in which it evaluates the national renewable energy action plans in accordance with the recommendations of the committee. Since 2012, the European Union has done nothing to comply and bring itself into compliance. It now has to report in this December, and every 10 months, on what it is doing. That will be brought back into the legal process at the next meeting of the parties. If the European Union keeps on refusing to comply, it will be thrown out of the convention. Quite rightly so.

I move now to the Aarhus convention and European Union law. It is an integral part of community law. Under community law, an international agreement is binding on the community institution and the member states and takes precedence over legal acts adopted by the community. Currently a legal case is going on in my name over the national renewable energy action plan in the Irish High Court. Seven other judicial reviews are going on in the High Court in relation to planning decisions and renewables in Ireland, and a judicial review is forthcoming in Scotland.

We have to ask ourselves these questions: is the Irish renewable energy programme proportionate? Is it reasonable? What are we trying to do, because we never assessed it? The only reasons why we have got so far with it is that buzzwords have sufficed and legal assessments have been bypassed. The public authorities do not have the information they are required to possess by law. Once assessed, it is nothing but completely disproportionate and dysfunctional. Sorry, I do not agree that a percentage of the electrons in my house being renewables actually amounts to anything. As we pointed out in the compliance committee, under cross-examination with the Scottish communication, what are we trying to achieve? What is the environmental protection? What does a ton of carbon dioxide actually do and save? How many proper tons of carbon dioxide are we saving — not wild, spurious claims that do not take account of the inefficiencies? All that Jean-François Brakeland, head of legal enforcement at DG Environment of the EU Commission, can come up with is:

I was not in the least surprised, because the European Union does not have any data. Nobody does. We do not know what a ton of carbon dioxide is doing in pounds, shillings and pence.

I turn now to the Planning Appeals Commission and the Drumadarragh wind farm in Northern Ireland. The legal requirement of the convention is that public participation takes place when all options are open. So does the European Union's environmental impact assessment directive. It states it: "when all options are open".

Then you see the Planning Appeals Commission saying:

Sorry, it is the law. When all options are open, the citizen is entitled to raise those issues. If they have not been addressed at the prior level or tier, the citizen is entitled to raise them at that point. That is the law. Your Planning Appeals Commission does not know the law and does not care.

Secondly, it is the obligation of the Planning Appeals Commission, as a decision-maker, to have those assessments prepared, by itself, of what exactly this wind turbine is doing. That is the commissioners' obligation: to assess it. Not the developer's statement, but its obligation, under law, to assess it and make that available. That is a clear breach of law. If the lawyers came in and started tearing you apart, you would be in severe problems.

Finally, even if we look at the European Union's own documentation, we find that it now recognises that those targets will not be met. The EU has had to scrap the 10% renewable fuels target because it was causing too much loss, food prices soaring and damaged environments. So we now have something like half the member states already recognising that we will not even approach those targets by 2020. As the EU's report says:

as we are proceeding at the moment. It predicts a renewable energy share of 7·8% versus a target of 15% set in the EU directive. So we are not going to make it. And what has been achieved so far? Nothing. There has been no increase in temperatures in 18 years and, even if the whole of the European Union's plan worked, and it has not, in terms of reducing carbon emissions, we would only be looking at a 1% reduction.

That is my contribution.

Dr Kane: The point that we are trying to make, Madam Chairman, is that, if the whole situation is illegal from the start, then everything that flows from it — PPS 18, the assessment methodology and all that — is also faulty. We know that there is an issue of transposition of European law into Northern Ireland regulation; that has not been done properly. The Planning (Environmental Assessment Impact) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2012 are not compliant with the European law. We also know that, at the level below the law, PPS 18 is not being properly carried out by the planners. They are not even following the faulty policy that is in place. That is not acceptable anyway. And they are using faulty policies below that, such as ETSU-R-97. They are not using it properly. They are not applying even the PPS 18 separation distances adequately. Therefore, for example, no minimum separation distance is being applied in the case of single turbines. If we had the time, I could prove to you, from the original documentation for the draft of PPS 18, that it was applied to single turbines as well as to wind farms. Yet, in some cases, we have turbines which are 100 metres from people's front doors. You are being told by the industry — I have seen some of the material provided to you by officials — that there are no health impacts. There is no evidence that there are no health impacts — none whatsoever. The evidence shows that there are different types of health impact and, if we have time, perhaps Professor Evans would like to comment on that.

Professor Alun Evans (Windwatch NI): Thank you for that invitation. I have read the submissions made to this Committee previously, in the shape of the chief environmental health officer, who suggested that ETSU-R-97 was out of date and needed to be reviewed, and also the evidence presented excellently by your wisely chosen acoustics expert, who said more or less the same thing, but added that she considered that there were also health problems. I consider that there are health problems associated with wind turbines. They are noisy; they are being put too close to human habitations; and the big thing that they are doing is keeping people awake. We can argue about the particular frequency of the sound being produced. They are noisy enough in the audible range. In the infrasound range which, classically, is inaudible, there is increasing evidence that the human brain is capable of perceiving it, not as sound but as a sensation, which is disturbing.

Even the report commissioned by Alex Salmond from the quartet of acousticians in Salford admitted that sleep disturbance, and possibly sleep deprivation, was a problem. There were no other health problems, but once you are into sleep deprivation and disturbance, you are into a very serious range of health problems. With children, you are into impaired memory and a tendency to produce obesity which tracks on into later life, predisposing particularly to cardiovascular problems. In adults, there are problems with memory and defects in cognition but, most importantly, there is cardiovascular disease. The weight of the evidence for a relationship between sleep deprivation and cardiovascular disease — stroke, heart attacks and heart failure — is large. I am very worried about that. The assurances being given are not good enough. Yes, we need studies or understanding mechanisms. As I say, I have had a long history, particularly in cardiovascular epidemiology. I worked for WHO for at least 25 to 30 years. I have an interest in cardiovascular disease, and I have great concerns about what is going on.

Thank you.

Mr Owen McMullan (Windwatch NI): I would just like to say that Mrs Ursula Walsh, the acoustics expert from the University of Ulster, confirmed that the ETSU guidelines are not fit for purpose. That was also highlighted by the environmental health officer, Chris Jordan, in a presentation to you. The ETSU guidelines do not cover wind shear, which creates the occurrence of amplitude modulation, infrasound, ice throw, reflected light, or shadow flicker, nor do they consider residential amenity. The current setback distances of ten times the rotor diameter, or 500 metres from a wind turbine to a dwelling, are not based on any scientific proof or medical evidence to suggest that it is a safe practice. At a DARD presentation on wind energy, I asked the representative for the scientific proof or medical evidence to prove that 10 times the rotor diameter or a 500 metre setback distance from the wind turbine to a dwelling was safe, his reply was that it was based on a rule of thumb.

In her presentation, Mrs Walsh also referred to the fact that Northern Ireland has become a dumping ground for second-hand wind turbines which are, perhaps, no longer acceptable in other countries but seem to be OK to be sold here. They have been refurbished, and they are being littered all round our countryside. Obviously, those wind turbines have had wear and tear. They have indentations and holes in the rotors which make them noisier. Mrs Walsh also confirmed that noise from wind turbines is much worse than industrial noise pollution and road traffic noise.

Earlier this year, we saw a BBC report that over £135 million has been paid out in compensation and legal fees to over 8,000 members of the PSNI who suffered hearing loss in the line of duty. Another 2,000 cases are still to be heard. That precedent has now been well and truly established, and there are now people living around the countryside in Northern Ireland who are going to be susceptible to hearing loss because current guidelines do not protect them from the infrasound and the noise emitted from wind turbines. There will be litigation further down the line.

We urge the Environment Committee to impose an immediate embargo on the processing of all planning applications for wind farms and proposals for single wind turbines, and cessation of those in the process of construction, until proper updated guidelines have been drafted, consulted upon with all the relevant stakeholders and introduced by the Assembly. A policy of strict adherence to all EC regulations and legislation must be introduced with immediate effect.

I would like to refer to the presentation by the DOE. I want to make a couple of comments on it. Mrs Deirdre McSorley was asked whether there was ever such a thing as saturation point and cumulative impact. She said that:

When asked a question by an MLA on the regulations of European legislation, her DOE colleague, Mr Kirk, said:

The presentation that was made by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health also confirms that the ETSU guidelines are not fit for purpose. They also said that strategic planning has really not been adequate to protect the amenity of the countryside and the citizens who enjoy rural life. Dr Chris Jordan, when he was asked how many wind turbines were in use in Northern Ireland, said that he thought that there were around 200, with 1,000 also being permitted. To confirm on that point: as of 31 August, 3,530 applications for single wind turbines had been made, of which 2,413 had been decided. Of those, 2,125 single wind turbines had been approved, with a further 631 pending. In addition to that, there have been 175 wind farm applications, of which 111 have been decided, with 96 approved and a further 54 pending. Mr Jordan was asked about the health impacts. Mr Maginness asked whether he was giving a health warning. Mr Jordan's reply was yes.

This is a map of Northern Ireland. You may or may not be familiar with it. It was printed as of the end of August. If that is not cumulative impact, I do not know what is.

Mr Weir: Would it be possible to pass that map around?

Mr Owen McMullan: Certainly. By all means, yes. In addition to that, I have the locations of wind farms. They cannot be transposed on the same map. SONI has plans to transfer the power from wind turbines onto the grid. We have a map of Northern Ireland which shows the corridor of pylons with overhead cables and additional substations. This has been done without any proper community engagement or public consultation. People who live in properties along that route and quite close to wind turbines that have been forced upon them against their will are now seeing the value of their properties decrease and, sometimes, their properties actually being deemed to be unsaleable.

I have here a copy of a statement from an estate agent in Ballymena relating to the sale of a property in Broughshane, County Antrim. The said property was put on the market in January 2014. Sale was agreed on 12 March 2014, whereupon solicitors were instructed. The purchasers discovered that planning approval for Elginny Hill wind farm had been sought. When that was brought to their attention, and after some discussion and negotiations with them, they eventually decided not to proceed with the purchase of the house. They felt that it would not be in their best interests to purchase a property with close proximity to such a development. So here we have evidence in black and white that, in cases of homes that are located in close proximity to wind turbines, not only have properties been devalued, but, in some cases, they have been deemed unsaleable. The property that I referred to was put on the market on 20 May 2014. To date, we have received no offers on the same.

With regard to the guidelines that I have just referred to as being not fit for purpose, serious questions must now be asked of the Environment Minister, the Enterprise Minister and the Health Minister and their respective Departments for rolling out a Government policy that fails to protect the basic human rights of rural communities throughout Northern Ireland. Who will pick up the tab for the inevitable consequential compensation claims that will follow?

I also note from the Hansard reports that Mrs Walsh from the University of Ulster was asked about ongoing noise monitoring to be conducted by wind energy developers. This would be completely unacceptable. That would be like asking the fox to guard the hen house. This should be conducted by a firm of appropriately qualified independent consultants.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Sorry, I missed that bit. Can you repeat that?

Mr Owen McMullan: Yes. When Mrs Walsh gave her briefing, she was asked whether developers should carry out ongoing noise monitoring. To suggest that the wind energy developers be responsible for ongoing noise monitoring is completely unacceptable. That would be like getting the fox to guard the hen house. This should be conducted by a firm of appropriately qualified independent consultants.

Dr Kane: This is a crucial point, Madam Chairman and members. There has never been any compliance testing of any wind farm in Northern Ireland since the first turbines went up — no proper compliance testing at all. Do they do what it says on the tin? We do not know, because nobody goes back to see whether they created the number of jobs that were claimed. Did they reduce CO2? Is CO2 even being measured? Did they produce the amount of electricity that was claimed for them? Are there complaints of noise around them? Are there health effects? We notice that members have asked other people who have come to speak to you questions on health and whether there are any records of people's health being affected. Nobody has been tasked with gathering that information. Who do you go to? You do not go to environmental health. It is not responsible for health. The Public Health Agency believes that it simply translates what is happening in England. There is an issue there right away.

Mr Swords: The strategic environmental assessment legislation in the European Union, which has been in member state law since 2004, requires for such a programme on energy that not only should it have been assessed with public participation before it was adopted, but it should have been subject to monitoring for unforeseen adverse environmental effects. That is the precise wording that is used in the legislation. The fact that your authorities here have not a scrap of evidence that they have ever done that, with the thousands of wind turbines that have been built on this island, is just an incredible legal breach, particularly as we are seeing that there are problems coming forward.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): OK. Thank you very much for your presentation. I think that you have to accept that we are too dependent on fossil fuels such as gas and oil, which are going to end in 50 or 60 years' time. We have a Programme for Government target for 2020 of 35%. It is set in the Programme for Government that we all have to strive for that. There is that requirement.

Mr Owen McMullan: Just on that point, the wind industry claims that all of these wind farms and turbines that are littered around our countryside will decrease our dependency on fossil fuels and our electricity bills. There is no evidence to suggest that, when our dependency on fossil fuels has actually increased. For example, during the summertime and even in September, 100% of our Northern Ireland fuel mix was actually being generated by fossil fuels. Wind was not contributing anything at all to the NI fuel mix.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): I have not got all of the figures here, but I think that there is evidence that we are now using a lot of renewable energy — more than before — on generating electricity. I think that that is a fact.

Mr Swords: OK. I can explain this. First of all, none of you has an entitlement to engage in a plan or programme of this nature without going through the necessary assessments and the cost/benefit consideration of alternatives. Opinions are irrelevant. It has to be done within the legal bounds of a transparent and fair process. That did not happen. Every step of the way, the procedures were bypassed. I do not need to have a lecture on how to design energy infrastructure; I know how to do it. I am professionally qualified in it. What we want to see is something that is done according to the law in a professional manner, which can be scrutinised by the public and agreed on. That gives you the transparency and buy-in of the public.

As regards claims about the percentage of renewable energy, because of the intermittent nature of renewable energy — I mean, my mother can figure it out. She is in her 80s and has no college education, but, as she says, "How do you expect me to cook a turkey for Christmas when I am waiting around for the wind to blow, and there is electricity in the oven?". There are massive instabilities on the grid. Just because you have 20% renewables does not mean that you are getting 20% fuel savings or 20% carbon dioxide savings. You are actually getting less than half of that, and, as you put more of them on, you will get even less. We, as engineers, know that, and senior engineers in the engineering institution — the Irish Academy of Engineering — are telling you all over the place to go and assess this and get it right. It is not just that you have to go and do it; you have a legal obligation to provide the information so that we do not end up with a European Union official, under cross-examination in Geneva, starting to talk about Mickey Mouse and carbon analysis of the statue.

Mr Boylan: Thank you very much for the presentation. It was very in-depth. To be fair, I have a couple of questions. To be honest with you, the target issue

if you are going to set a target, no matter what it is, it has to be achievable.

Mr Swords: Exactly.

Mr Boylan: That is where the question marks are first. I want to go down this route because I want to tease this out with you. You are talking about law and what is legal. What law are we looking at here? I will explain myself here. It is not that I have an issue with European law; I think that we should follow certain practices and best standards, and if it is set in Europe, that is grand. We also have to recognise that, as a member state or an authority of whatever devolved government it is, they have certain policies. If you look at it in the round, in this case — we will use this as an example — whether you believe that PPS 18 is good, bad or indifferent, it is there at the minute. We have heard all the arguments about it. You are saying that it is a legal matter, and we have policy here. Are you saying that policy is illegal according to European law? Can you expand a bit on that? Then I will get on to ETSU and all the other issues, because it is important to go down this line.

Mr Swords: Any type of structure will evolve, and people react to the situation. Basically, in the 70s and 80s, it was recognised worldwide that developments were being rushed in projects — maybe a bridge here, a power station and oil refinery there — and we came up with the principle of environmental impact assessment, not only in Europe but in the United States. It was to assess the project and to inform the decision-making and the methodology and the tools that we use for that.

The next stage of that was that it then became obvious that this was deficient, in the sense that if the bridge was part of a big motorway network or the power station was part of a massive roll-out of energy infrastructure, you had to assess the next level up, which was the plan. So we started bringing in legislation to do a strategic environmental assessment at the plan or programme level in a more holistic viewpoint. Instead of having a motorway network, would you increase some of the rail network modalities of transport? That is a simple one.

That has been applied worldwide, and it is part of European legislation and has also been adopted at member state level. The first one has been at the project level since 1985, and the other one has been implemented at programme level since 2004. But because of the fall-out of eastern Europe and the legacy of Ceausescu and all of this and unsuitable development, there was a strong desire that this would not happen again.

They took the Rio declaration at the UN and brought it into the Aarhus convention, which is overriding and extends way beyond the European Union area. It states that the public should be given rights; that any development should be part of a transparent and fair process; and it should be proceduralised. It does not say that nuclear power is bad or good; it does not say that wind power is good or bad. It says that, if you develop a project, you should do so in a structured manner. You should provide the information and have public participation in the planning of the project, at the top level and the programme level. Then, you should provide public access to recourse to justice, which is to challenge issues. That has to mean that the public can bring the factual basis into the courts and challenge it in a manner that is not prohibitively expensive. The UK has not complied with that and, at the minute, is subject to compliance hearings in the European Court and at Geneva. So, the approach is that you have to give the public rights. When a populist wave disappears, or when, after 20 years, there is a change of Government, it is the public who are left with this in the landscape around them: the derelict plants. We have to protect the public and give them rights. Democracy is about bringing out people's talents. The authorities in the Planning Appeals Commission are not the only ones with knowledge. Plenty of others, particularly in the local area, may be even more expert in planning than the planners.

Mr Boylan: We could talk and argue all day about this. If we were going by some principles, we would never get into a car and drive down the road.

Mr Swords: Yes.

Mr Boylan: There are loads of arguments. What you said is interesting, and that is why I asked you about the legal side of it.

I thank my colleague who brought the issue of the ETSU-R-97 to the Committee in the first place. It seems to be a major issue for us, judging by a previous presentation. One argument was that it was not fit for purpose, and, from what I hear from different people, including experts, it certainly has not been. It has been part of the assessment process in allowing wind farms, and that will be reflected in the report. There is no doubt about it.

The other issue is the setback distances and whether you feel that PPS 18 has been adhered to. The setback distance for wind farms is 500 metres, and there is a nominal distance of 10 times the rotor diameter. I do not know where exactly that comes from.

Dr Kane: I can tell you exactly where that came from. It was the civil servants' approach to trying to combine a proposal for shadow flicker — 10 times the rotor diameter — and the 500-metre minimum separation distance. The whole story is in our 'Devastation and Delusion' document. Remember, the wind industry asked for PPS 18 to be written and, indeed, wrote it. Stephen Hamilton admitted that here, and that is in the Hansard report.

When they came to look at the separation distance, they had a stakeholders' group, but they left environmental health out of that group. As environmental health was not involved, there was nobody to give any noise expertise except the wind industry. Strangely enough, we ended up with ETSU-R-97. The Chief Environmental Health Officers Group (CEHOG) was extremely annoyed about that. It wrote in and said, "There's an issue here of the minimum separation distance". Page 46 of ETSU gives a works example on which the proposed separation distance is based. We have copies here, if you want to look at them. It shows that I am not making it up. They used a single turbine, not a wind farm, as an illustration. They said that the equivalent of a 101-decibel single turbine would not reach the noise standard of 35 decibels at 437 metres; at that distance, it would still be 38 decibels. As you know, for a single turbine, the simple method of assessing noise is simply to ask this question: will it meet the 35-decibel standard? ETSU, in 1996, states that the noise at 437 metres would not get down to the low level needed. So the Chief Environmental Health Officers Group came back and said that the minimum distance should, therefore, be 500 metres. CEHOG said that in 2008, but, in 2004, the people who wrote ETSU had already decided that the distance should be 700 metres. However, the Chief Environmental Health Officers Group did not seem to know that.

So the 500 metres was based on the example of a single turbine. That was confirmed to me by the people who scribed PPS 18. The public consultation was on the website — there were 90-odd responses — and they clearly state that the 500-metre minimum separation distance applied to wind energy installations, not wind farms. If you go one step further, you say that planners in all the groups are using the 500 metres only for wind farms. However, if you take the view that it applies only to wind farms, because that is the term used, you cannot use ETSU for single turbines, because it is the assessment and rating of noise from wind farms. So, if you say that a farm means "not for single turbines", the assessment and rating of noise for wind farms does not apply to single turbines.

You have asked a very perceptive question. Here is the rub: rural communities — in fact, the whole of Northern Ireland — had a very robust noise standard called BS4142. All environmental health agencies, right across the UK and the Republic, used this because it worked. It was a method of assessing the likelihood of annoyance being caused to the neighbours of any industrial noise source. It is still in use, but wind farm noise is different; it was given a special dispensation. So, irrespective of any other factor, rural communities across Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales already suffer a penalty because BS4142 is not allowed to be used for wind farms. If you ran the two in parallel, you would find that ETSU allows a far greater level of noise, for neighbours of wind farms and wind turbines, than the original standard, BS 4142.

The 500 metres was definitely based on a single turbine. We are told by the planners that it does not apply, and yet they still apply the measure of 10 times the rotor diameter, which is also supposed to be only for wind farms and is, as I said, based on shadow flicker. The research that it was based on was a paper by A D Clarke for the Open University in 1991. The details are in the paper 'Devastation and Delusion', which you have. The quote in PPS 18 is wrong. The authors have misinterpreted the research: it does not say that 10 times the rotor diameter will solve the problem of shadow flicker; it says that, if you live to the east/south-east, west/south-west and so on, it definitely will not solve that problem and that much greater separation distances are needed.

We gave some video evidence to the Committee — I believe that it did not work, so we will replace it — that clearly shows serious shadow flicker indoors and out at 30-plus times the rotor diameter. There were assessments of wind farms in various places. The assessment of Wolf Bog, for example, in County Antrim showed that the worst-affected house was at 15 times the rotor diameter but that houses at 22 times the rotor diameter were also badly affected, as, indeed, were dwellings at 33 times the rotor diameter.

So, none of the factors being used are correct, and the method of dealing with separation distances is, frankly, wrong. That is why, to try to clarify that, we called for a minimum separation distance of two kilometres. Then we can take the safe position that, if a developer can prove to us and to you that there is no impact by moving closer, because topography and so on would intervene, a lesser distance may be considered. However, with the present method of dealing with separation distances, people are being exposed to torture. We all know about the UN Torture Convention, and, if you remember back to the 1970s and 1980s, when young people used to gather around shopping centres, a little device mounted on a wall emitted low-frequency noise. That is what comes from wind turbines that are close to homes.

You have a video clip showing a snowstorm. The industry attended the Committee on 12 September and said that there was no problem with low-frequency noise. Not only is there a problem with it, the chief executive of Vestas has admitted it. That video clip clearly shows the low-frequency noise. You can see the spirals of noise as the blade passes the tower. So there is a major issue of people being exposed to what is, basically, torture. If the issue is not resolved, we will be forced to explore that further.

Mr Boylan: I am nearly afraid to ask another question, Chair, but just allow me one more wee one. Owen, you referred to health issues. What about the practice elsewhere? There are wind turbines all over the world. Are you saying that there is evidence on those?

Mr Owen McMullan: Peer-reviewed studies have been carried out around the globe. We are not making up this stuff. I have witnessed people suffering in their own home because of the impact of wind turbines being too close.

Mr Boylan: Dan, you mentioned compliance. For the approval of any application, conditions must be met. Are we going to be reactionary by asking for compliance, checks and everything else? Where do you see that process going?

Dr Kane: Some of the compliance is very easy. Software developed in New Zealand allows the calculation of the exact noise being produced by a wind turbine or a wind farm. Among other things, we think that it would be a very worthwhile experiment to try the different types of assessment methodology, side by side, at the same site and then compare the results. So, we could compare ETSU, BS 4142 and the Institute of Acoustics good practice guide, which has a lot of the same faults as ETSU. There has never been a proper assessment.

Consider the economic benefits. I do not want to bother you with too much paper today, but I have a report here for a 54 MW wind farm in County Fermanagh, which clearly shows that it has no employees. It produces 54 MW and there is an income from that electricity, but it has no employees. So where are the 30 jobs that were claimed for that wind farm? Where have they gone? Incidentally, the report also says that the turbines are expected to last for only 15 years, not 25. So there are a lot of issues there. Who measures the Co2? I wrote to DETI and asked who assesses the claims made by developers about the Co2 savings from their wind farms. Nobody does. These are not proper claims; they are never checked out. As in the case of shadow flicker and so on, nobody in planning has the competence to do these things, and they are not being passed on to other government organisations that can. So there is a major compliance issue to test.

We must look also at the health issues. I have with me a little device called a Zeo, which, if you do not mind, I will pass on to you. It was used recently to prove the problems with sleep that wind turbines cause. You wear it on a headband at night. Alun could tell you how it works by measuring brainwave patterns. It showed that, when a person stayed near a wind farm, they had a certain quality of sleep; when they stayed away from the wind farm, their quality of sleep improved very significantly. The Zeo turns brainwave patterns into a score. It is scientifically applicable and can demonstrate that, even though you are not necessarily being woken up, the value of your sleep is being destroyed by the low frequencies and amplitude modulation — all that comes from a turbine but is not measured by ETSU. As you know, ETSU uses only the A-rated scale. It does not, therefore, look at low frequencies and takes no account of the amplitude modulation, and those are two of the major issues with wind turbines.

Professor Evans: There is no provision to measure at night or inside the subject's or sufferer's house. The sound may be worse inside than outside.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): OK. We must be aware of the time. Barry, do you have a quick question?

Mr McElduff: Thank you, Chair. Did I pick up correctly Dan's suggestion that a minimum separation distance between a wind turbine and a dwelling should be 2 kilometres? I note that you provided us with a video clip of shadow flicker. What is the main point that you are making on the shadow flicker issue?

Dr Kane: The original separation distance of 10 times the rotor diameter was set on the basis of that research on shadow flicker, but that research was incorrect. I will give you an illustration of 10 times the rotor diameter: if the rotor diameter of the turbine is, say, 20 metres, what height is a tower with a 20-metre blade? You can have towers of different heights with the same blades. Therefore, the turbine is getting higher and higher, the sun is being cast further and further towards your home, but the blades are identical, so the separation distance, according to PPS 18, remains the same. That is an obvious fault in the original research, which contains a whole series of problems, but that is where 10 times the rotor diameter came from. We are saying that it is clear that it was wrong when it was written, it was wrongly transposed into PPS 18 — it was misquoted actually — and the evidence is that shadow flicker can be cast for great distances.

Indeed, work by people looking at epilepsy research— Professor Harding and his team at Aston University — has shown that the intensity of the light from shadow flicker reduces only when you get, believe it or not, 100 times the hub height away from the turbine, so you are talking about kilometres. There is an issue there right away.

The other issue is noise itself. There is no measurement. What we have here is theorising. You will find that, generally, neither the applicant for a wind farm or wind turbine nor environmental health will measure the noise. They will only estimate it. Nobody ever goes back afterwards to see whether the estimate was an accurate representation. Pat mentioned the Drumadarragh application. Complaints about noise were made in 2007 and have still not even been investigated properly. Environmental health is not equipped to deal with it. What do you do in that situation? You give yourself a safety zone. The safety zone of 2 kilometres has been recommended by noise experts all over the world and is the rule of thumb that is in use in Scotland. I am sure that you are aware that Scotland is consulting on moving it out to 2·5 kilometres. So there is an issue of wind farms having an adequate separation distance that will provide a safety margin until some sensible resolution of compliance testing has taken place.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): Thank you very much, gentlemen. There is certainly a lot of information for us to take away. I think that we need to talk to the Department and the Executive about the legality side.

Lord Morrow: May I ask Dr Kane one question? He challenged a number of points in PPS 18. I was interested in the separation distance, which another member raised. Was it 2 kilometres?

Dr Kane: Up to 2 kilometres.

Lord Morrow: If PPS 18 is inaccurate, what are we doing to address that? I think that you said that some of the statements in PPS 18 are just wrong. Is that right?

Dr Kane: Yes.

Mr Swords: Remember that when the citizen brings an analysis to the planning department, all options are open for effective public participation. For planning then to trivialise it and say, "Get lost — we have our plan." is a breach of law.

Lord Morrow: Yes.

Mr Swords: It is breach of decency, too.

Lord Morrow: Yes. That is really my question. Surely, in the future, we will not be subjected to working from a PPS 18 that is patently inaccurate?

Mr Owen McMullan: That is already happening.

Dr Kane: Let me give you one example of a particular inaccuracy. It was lifted directly from the British Wind Energy Association's website, I believe, and put into PPS 18 that:

That was a false statement when it was made and is even more false now. At the time that it was made, there had already been 44 known deaths. Maybe death does not count as injury, I do not know. At the last count, on 30 June 2014, there had been 151 deaths. I think that 90 were wind farm industry workers, but the rest were members of the public, people just passing by in one form or another, or single turbine operators. So, there is a patent untruth. Most accidents that occur around wind farms — there have been over 1,500 in the UK in a five-year period — are caused by the thing that you are told cannot happen: the breaking of the blades, blades being flung off, collapse of the tower, fire, and so on and so forth. These incidents happen in significant numbers.
Research by the University of Edinburgh, just this year, shows that you would expect at least 117 turbines to burn down each year across the world. We are not saying that, generally, a member of the public can expect to get a lump of wind-turbine blade on the head. We are saying that when you are looking at separation distances, this has to be an issue. The Government's health and safety laboratory did tests on pieces of blade being thrown off. They worked out that pieces had been thrown to distances of nearly 1,500 metres. These are the distances that you have to take into account, and that is why we are talking about 2 kilometres.

Everything, as you know, is subordinated to the 40% target. Interestingly, the industry will tell you that, if you require a distance of 2 kilometres, we will not have any turbines. Under ETSU, we have a very high night-time standard of 43 decibels, which is totally against the World Health Organization's guidance. In Germany, the night-time standard is 35 decibels. They have a standard of 35 decibels at night and up to 40 during the day. We, too, can have up to 40 during the day. Germany has twice the population density of Northern Ireland, yet does not seem to have any problem at all with wind turbines. That is not an issue, although wind energy is not working there. Germany can give that comfort zone and still, despite its higher population density, deal with wind turbines.

That is not being done here. The public are being put last in this procedure. We think that the public, particularly the rural public, should be put first. It does not just affect the rural public; urban constituents are suffering because electricity prices have doubled in the past 10 years. You are being told that this doubling is because of gas prices. Yes, because gas is having to be used to support wind energy. If you did not have wind energy as, basically ,a second grid, you would not have to use as much gas, and you would not have to use it in the inefficient way in which it is being used now. There is a cost for all of us.

One of the reasons that we react so strongly to community benefits is because they are a way of avoiding the point that we were all promised lower electricity prices from wind energy, and we are not getting them. They are also a way of avoiding compensating those most badly affected. Those who live closest to the turbines are obviously the ones who must be compensated. That is common law, but that is not happening either.

The Chairperson (Ms Lo): OK. Thank you very much indeed. We shall produce a draft report, probably towards the end of the year, and you will have a chance to look at it. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your ongoing support and contributions.