CURRENT ACCOUNT: Anyone puzzled about the enthusiasm for wind farms that has gripped Ireland in recent years got an answer of sorts in the Budget.

Needless to say, it appears to have as much to do with avarice as any new found concern for the environment, Kyoto protocols and all that stuff.

One of the more interesting loop holes closed off by the Minister for Finance in his Budget on Wednesday was the abuse of relief on investments in electricity generation and supply companies. Passive investors in such ventures - which include wind farms - were able to use the losses and capital allowances associated with these companies to shelter their other income.

The Minister has now tightened the rules and passive investors will now only be able to use the relief to shelter income from the business itself.

It is understood that the measure is primarily targeted at passive investors in wind farms, and, according to the Department of Finance, the changes "should prevent tax leakage of up to €10 million per year for the next five to eight years".

When you add all this "leakage" up it comes to something in the region of €80 million in tax avoided and suggests that a significant level of investment in wind farms is being driven primarily by tax planning rather than concern for the planet.

Presumably the passive investors in question are involved in the smaller land-based projects - the economics of which have hitherto been hard to fathom - rather than the three or four massive projects that are planned. If the investors putting up the more than €1 billion earmarked for these projects were having their relief curtailed, the savings would have to be more than €80 million.