IDP welcomes Donegal County Councils Decarbonized Zones (DZ) consultation announcement and look forward to continuing to work with them on advancing the Inishowen Sustainable Energy Community (SEC) plan.

The Inishowen SEC is led by IDP with strong cross sectoral partners in Inishowen Co Op and Donegal Co Co.  The group is also supported by the SEAI through Sligo IT.  Spokesperson for the group outlined “We are delighted to see the progression of action in this area by DCC. This is very timely for Inishowen SEC as our Energy Master Plan for Inishowen is about to be launched. We have been working through the last year despite the pandemic in pulling together a comprehensive plan for Inishowen using a whole community approach. We are well placed to start to rollout on some of the actions identified in the Register of Opportunities and hope to continue to work closely with Donegal Co Co and other relevant agencies in this regard”.

With support from strong Inishowen based projects such as Inishowen Rivers Trust, IDP believes we are well placed to be an exemplar area with the range of projects in the Inishowen area aligning perfectly with what has been set out in the announcement. We already have a strong foundation on which to build and develop solutions and projects in Inishowen. Over the past few years IDP has worked on projects such as Biodiversity initiatives developing ECO Carn as a new network and supporting Inishowen Rivers Trust, through the Leader programme, to deliver innovative projects in our community. We are actively looking at funding opportunities to progress our collaborative work and are engaging with other best practice projects regionally, nationally and internationally.

We look forward to our official Energy Master Plan launch event and have some additional training programme ideas in the pipeline to engage and enable local people to become involved. Our award winning ChangeMakers project (in collaboration with Donegal ETB, Self-Help Africa & Trocaire) promotes understanding of the link between local and global issues, awareness on Climate change and just transitions, and the SDGs (formerly MDGS) for the past nine years.

Our launch event of the Inishowen Energy Master Plan will be notified in local media and through our networks.  We look forward to continuing to support and collaborate with Donegal Co Co in its work in this area. We would therefore encourage all community groups and individuals who participated and raised these issues  through our Envision Series, to ensure your voices are heard again through this project so that we can make the case with one voice and put Inishowen forward as the exemplar for the rest of the county to develop pathways and learnings to share with other communities countywide with the vision of a sustainable future for all.    The form and other information is available from Donegal County Council (donegalcoco.ie) and completed forms can be sent via email to: [email protected].