meeting HEARS CLAIM THAT CEMENT AND QUARRYING INDUSTRIES HAVE TOO MUCH INFLUENCE IN DICTATING POLICY
A DEMAND for stricter monitoring and regulation of the extractive industry in County Kildare was made at a meeting in Ballyshannon last week, where it was claimed that the cement and quarrying industry have too much influence in dictating policy to local authority and government.
The meeting was hosted by the Ballyshannon Action Group, with a view to establishing a county-wide community platform to monitor and measure the activities of the extractive industry. It was afterwards described as ‘very productive’ and the organisers say they were delighted with the input and support from the public representatives present.
“We feel the representatives who came are listening, and rightly concerned about the issue,” Joanna Costello of Ballyshannon Action told the **********Kildare Nationalist****. “They have all committed to representing our views on a national level as well as the county level. When you look at the sheer level of destruction quarrying has caused across the county it’s plain as day that something has to be done.”
The tone of the meeting was that the State needs to ‘lead from the front’ instead of letting the cement and quarry industry continue to self-regulate. “It should be a top-down approach, but currently the extractive industry seems to dictate policy,” Joanna Costello said, adding that as the State is the biggest client of the industry, it should follow its own Climate Action Plan and demand alternative lower carbon construction materials in all public works contracts.
Ballyshannon Action chairman Jim Burke said the extractive industry was making hundreds of millions of euro, and “nothing from it was going back into the country”. He suggested that the industry are paying minimal tax on their activities. “Tax them as much as you can and there will be plenty of money to build social housing, parks, and the good things that people deserve.”
Kieran Cummins from Enfield in Co Meath, which he has described as ‘quarry central’ in that county, told the meeting that the system of providing bonds to ensure reinstatement of quarrying sites is ‘totally inadequate’ for what the country is now dealing with. Noting that a bond is just like an insurance policy, he said escrow accounts of ‘hard cash’ being put aside for reinstatement are what is needed.
Minister of State Martin Heydon criticised industry companies going to An Bord Pleanála to have development levies reduced, as having no concern for communities where they operate. “If they were paying proper levies they could be considered a partnership. But when they challenge them, they show they don’t care at all.” Senator Mark Wall agreed, saying quarry companies ruin communities and because they have appealed and had levies reduced, “there is nothing left to pay for the damage”.
Other matters raised included a perceived failure of local authorities to follow through with prosecutions of companies seen to be non-compliant in financial and other conditions of planning permissions.
“With fines of up to €12 million, even implementing one would put the fear of God into them all,” Kieran Cummins observed. He also noted that some countries no longer have their own sand and gravel, including the UK where they are dredging river beds for aggregate. “Even in Ireland we have exhausted our sand and gravel resources in many areas,” he said. “We do need to be looking at our policy of using our resources as if there’s no end to them.” Independent TD Cathal Berry said he hadn’t realised that so much of the aggregate extracted here was being exported, and he said he would investigate if that was illegal given that it was so destructive in environmental terms.
Cllr Padraig McEvoy from Clane said public interest and the environment has to be put back into planning policy. “We have lost our perspective,” he said, suggesting the question has to be asked “if we’re trying to develop the country too much?”.
Minister Heydon said the last few years in Ballyshannon had given a ‘crash course’ in the deficiencies in the planning system. Specifically on the Racefield project, turned down by Kildare Co Council but their decision reversed by An Bord Planeála, he said it had been looked at in isolation even though it was known Kilsaran had bought other lands in the area.
“My view is that if a company has plans to develop across an area, that needs to be looked at in the whole.” The current pre-legislative scrutiny of revisions to planning laws that’s going through an Oireachtas committee, and which has the potential to limit objections by communities to developments, was discussed. Senator Mark Wall reminded the meeting that such committees must consider contributions from the public, and submissions by letter from anybody are very important.
The meeting included attendees from the mid-Kildare area, from Rathangan in the west of the county and Athy in the south. Representatives from the Two Mile House Says No! group, who have been fighting against a plan to develop a large-scale battery storage installation (BESS) at Dunnstown, said that ‘developers have all the advantages’. “Even though Kildare Co Council refused permission, Bord Pleanála overturned that,” campaign member Hugh Dillon said of their issue. “Because it has a kind of green agenda, nobody wants to say anything about it. Our planning system isn’t fit for purpose.”
All councillors and other public representatives in the county had been invited to the meeting. Apologies were received from councillors Peggy O’Dwyer, Ivan Keatley, Tracey O’Dwyer, Tim Durkan and Mark Leigh, as well as TDs Bernard Durkan and Seán Ó Fearghaíl, and Senator Fiona O’Loughlin.
