Tipperary Wind Farm Planning Decision Referred To Europe By Supreme Court
The Supreme Court, having considered a challenge against An Bord Pleanála’s decision to grant planning permission for an electricity generating wind farm in Co Tipperary, have ruled that this case does raise issues of public importance.
The initial challenge refers to a ten year permission, granted by An Bord Pleanála, to ESB Wind Development and Coillte; to construct a wind farm in the area of Keeper Hill in the Silvermines Mountains in Co Tipperary.
Hen Harrier (Picture courtesy Mr Shay Connolly, Bird Watch Ireland)
The Supreme Court applicants had claimed that the permission granted breached EU Habitats and Environment Impact Assessment Directives and would contribute to the loss of some 400 acres of foraging for Hen Harrier, if and when this same wind farm was progressed.
Previously the High Court had dismissed the case of M/s Edel Grace of Grousehall Milestone, Thurles, Co Tipperary and Environmental Consultant Mr Peter Sweetman of Bunnahowen, Cashel, Co Galway, in their action.
The Supreme Court however now want the EU (CJEU) Court of Justice to determine European law issues, before ruling whether An Bord Pleanála properly assessed the impact of this Co. Tipperary wind farm on the habitat of these hen harriers, latter a protected species under EU law.
The important joint Supreme Court judgement on Friday last, before a seven-judge Supreme Court which included Mr Justice Frank Clarke and Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley, concluded that M/s Grace did have standing in her appeal. The fact that she had not participated in the planning process and resided less than one kilometre from the special protection area (SPA), did not deprive her of standing. The Supreme Court therefore agreed to refer certain issues to the CJEU concerning the procedure adopted by An Bord Pleanála. These precise issues have as yet not been described, but same are expected to be set out later.
“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals”. [George Orwell, Animal Farm.]
What now makes the European Court challenge by M/s Edel Grace, Grousehall, Milestone, Thurles, Co Tipperary so important?
Should a wind turbine be installed on the ‘Stiletto in the Ghetto’, in O’Connell Street, Dublin, to further improve renewable energy sources?
Some 32 farmers in Co. Tipperary availed of payments last year for their involvement in taking the necessary measures to protect the endangered Hen Harrier bird species; known romantically as “Sky Dancers” because of their skilled and elaborate aerial displays.
During the last five years well over €10m in funding was paid out to farmers in the form of compensation payments. Indeed it was a farmer in Co. Tipperary who received the single largest payment (€14,594) for the granting of this special protection. But an even bigger scandal is recognised when the latest Hen Harrier population figures are released.
Same figures indicate that there reside only an average of about 125 breeding Hen Harrier pairs left in Ireland. This figure registers a decline of over 33% since 2000 or a decline of almost 9% in 2016, despite the birds having being offered paid special protection since 2010. (Imagine what Focus Ireland could have achieved with this €10m funding, equal to over €8,000.00 per breeding bird pair over this same 5 year period).
What also makes this European challenge by M/s Edel Grace therefore important is not necessarily the wanton destruction by An Bord Pleanála to beautiful rural Tipperary landscapes; but rather that wind farms in rural areas are now being granted planning permission in EU funded Hen Harrier breeding areas, supposedly set up and funded to offer protection. This so called EU protection, together with the burning of moorland is recognised as being the root cause; seriously effecting the Irish Hen Harrier population through the removal of natural breeding habitats and naturally occurring mammal feeding grounds.
“He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack: but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse.” – Proverbs 28:27.
During the current year, 2016, we celebrated the one hundred year of our struggle for Irish independence, with at least some €22 million, minimum, in taxpayer funding, spent in various ways, but mainly in the areas, both in and around, Sackville Street, today better known as O’Connell Street; Dublin’s main thoroughfare.
Travelling through Dublin in recent weeks, one could not help but notice the number of homeless people begging and sleeping rough in the streets of this same city. By sleeping rough I mean men and women of all ages sleeping or bedded down in the freezing open air, seeking refuge in filthy doorways, parks and bus shelters; people sleeping in buildings or other places not designed for human habitation e.g. car parks, living what now appears to be the socially acceptable “Plastic Bag” and “Wet Cardboard” lifestyle.
A headcount taken in our Capital’s city centre area recently found 168 people were sleeping rough with this figure not including some 60 people sharing a floor in the Merchant’s Quay Night Cafe and an unknown number of persons bedded down, hidden from immediate sight in the 1752 acres of the Phoenix Park, latter containing ‘Áras an Uachtaráin’, the residence currently occupied by the head of State and President of our ‘Emerald Green Island’.
Now towards the end of 2016, following our 100 year commemorations / celebrations; call them what you will; it would appear our current minority Fine Gael government have failed dismally to adhere to the very ideals of Irish revolutionary leader Michael Collins. Where now in 2016 are spoken the words of Collins; quote; “For the future, we must not have the destitution of poverty at one end, and at the other, an excess of riches”?
So also our rapidly diminishing so called Irish Labour Party, which propped up the outgoing Fine Gael government over the previous 5 years. They too, in their greed for power, have overlooked the accurate prophesy in the words spoken by their once executed associate James Connolly, quote: “If you remove the English army tomorrow, unless you set about the organisation of a Socialist Republic, she will still continue to rule you through her Capitalists, through her Landlords, through her Financiers“.
Current statements like “no person will be on the streets unless they want to be” are no longer acceptable from those who were elected to rule over us. When will the practice of allowing those refusing shelter; sleeping on mattresses of wet cardboard; wrapped in discarded plastic bags, cease? I say this in the knowledge of the problems within homeless shelters, due to individuals having complex drink and drug related struggles. Accept it; people lying in doorways do not feel safe in sheltered accommodation, while forced to sleep, wearing footwear on their feet; in the sure and certain knowledge if they do not, their shoes, together with other meagre possessions, will be stolen by morning.
What would it cost our government, (who knowingly amongst other unnecessary spending, used an estimated €27 million of taxpayers money, on a postal code system, namely Eircode, which possibly will never be wholly used), to provide one warm coat, a pair of stout shoes and a one-person tent that can be compressed into a portable bag (See picture above), to a mere couple of hundred rough sleepers at most?
If we see ourselves as Christians, surly it is time to examine and act immediately on the urgent and very basic needs of a few people who, for whatever reason, choose to sleep rough in conditions, (dare I say unfit for an animal), exposing themselves to the current freezing winter conditions, being experienced over recent weeks, on the streets of our cities.
“Take heed and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” – St. Luke 12:15
The massive disparity separating Urban and Rural communities continues to expand.
The Mid West Region represents an area spanning 8,248 km², taking in the geographical borders of the combined counties of Clare, Limerick, & North Tipperary. The population of these 3 areas, according to the most recent information taken on Census night 2016, are officially recorded as:- Co. Clare – 118,627 persons, Limerick – 195,175 persons (Inc. Limerick city) and North Tipperary – 71,370 persons. Total population for the Mid West Region can therefore be calculated as containing some 385,172 residents.
National Ambulance Service Review
The Siren Study set up to evaluate the development and performance of different emergency and urgent care systems (EUCS) has show that medical patient survival rates for emergency cases, in this same Mid West Region, are among the lowest in the country.
The findings of this study undertaken by University Collage Cork (UCC), which compared patient admission and outcome figures for 2000-2006 and 2007-2012, suggested that if every County had the same death rate for emergency conditions as Dublin, up to one thousand lives per year could be saved.
While admitting that fatality rates have dropped nationally during the past 10 years, the disparity still remaining between the regions continues to dwell significant.
Dublin currently has six emergency departments for a population of 1.2 million people. If the same A&E model was in place in the Mid West Region were to be used in Dublin there would only be three emergency departments available in our capital.
The excessive waiting times for ambulances and the requirement for all emergency cases to be taken to University Hospital Limerick (UHL) is acknowledged as having been a likely cause of death in a number of past emergency medical cases.
The original reasoning behind the development of a ‘Centre of Excellence’ in Limerick certainly showed some merit, as in the centralising of certain expertise and services. However based on the current demand for services alone, (UHL) at this present time is not ‘fit for need’, and to-date has not been sufficiently upgraded in the aftermath of the initial decision to downgrade Nenagh General Hospital.
Based on projected population increases alone the people of North Tipperary, in particular, continue to allow themselves to be treated as second-class citizens. Promises made to provide a new accident and emergency (A&E) department at University Hospital Limerick following the downgrading of both Ennis and Nenagh General Hospitals has now been delayed by a further two months according to confirmation by the UL Hospitals Group recently.
Their excuse “It is more important to get it right than to open too soon without the proper systems and safeguards in place”, is no longer acceptable. Building contractors, engaged at University Hospital Limerick, are due to hand over this new project at the end of the first quarter in 2017, and between 90 and 100 additional staff are being targeted for the new department, in a recruitment drive that is supposedly currently under way. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) however have expressed concerns over the likelihood of securing such medical staff in the immediate future.
Not for the first time over the last few months and in the case of UHL, yesterday showed same to be the busiest A&E in Ireland, with 36 patients reported as waiting to be provided with the luxury of a bed on a ward. To add further to this misery; fears have been expressed over the continued provision of the essential rapid response emergency ambulance services for Tipperary and Clare. The National Ambulance Service (NAS) have confirmed they are reviewing the provision of rapid response vehicles in both counties with a view to discontinuing at least some already existing services.
Back in 2009, as part of a HSE reconfiguration of hospital services, which supervised the closure of Nenagh’s A&E departments to a daytime only operation; ambulances staffed by advanced paramedic staff, specially trained in advanced life support skills and drugs administration were introduced into the Mid-West instead. This same service was touted by the HSE as ‘Tipperary’s A&E on the Road’. We were informed then, and foolishly accepted as fact, that this service was to be “A natural progression in the enhancement and development of the ambulance service in North Tipperary”.
While the HSE confirm that this review has only recently commenced and that no decision will be made until all aspects of the Mid West Review is finalised; North Tipperary needs to be aware. After all just some weeks ago our County Councillors were discussing raising Property Tax in Co Tipperary. Perhaps it’s now time to sell up or accept the fact that you will die, not as a result of any medical condition such as a heart attack, but as a result of remaining to reside in a long forgotten rural North Tipperary.
Some €150 million is being spent to redevelop the historic 1916 Boland’s Mill site in Dublin’s docklands, including the construction of a 15-storey apartment block, by Dublin City Council.
Buildings at No.14 to No.17 inclusive at Moore Street, Dublin have been purchased since 2015 from Nama, by Fine Gael Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Heather Humphreys. Possibly three of these buildings were in ruins prior to the 1916 Easter Rising and therefore, despite Sinn Féin’s revenge protestations, are of no real historic significant. Admittedly around three hundred Irish Volunteers and members of Cumann na mBan did use the cover of these derelict buildings to escape from the GPO after it caught fire, following a bombardment by British artillery; breaking in and tunnelled their way through gable walls. The fourth house No.16 is important, since it became Volunteer headquarters and the place from which it was decided to finally surrender on April 29th, 1916.
An extra €2 million in 2015, we are informed, was transferred from Arts to secure funding for the wages of staff operating free tourist admissions to National Cultural Institutions which included the National Museum of Ireland, the Natural History museum on Dublin’s Merrion Street, Archaeology on Kildare Street and the National Library of Ireland.
We are informed that a capital provision of €22 million was allocated in 2015 to a number of flagship projects, including the development of a permanent exhibition space and interpretative centre at the GPO in O’Connell Street; the renovation of Kilmainham Courthouse in Dublin to enhance the visitor experience at Kilmainham Gaol; the provision of a permanent visitor facility at Cathal Brugha Barracks for the Military Service Pensions Archive; renovation works at Richmond Barracks; the development of a Tenement Museum in Dublin; and the restoration of the Kevin Barry rooms in the National Concert Hall.
Forgetting the €150 million spend on the historic 1916 Boland’s Mill site, some €28 million, at least, has now been set aside for 1916 projects; all of which has one theme in common – DUBLIN.
Today the Tipperary Kelly / Coonan Circus rolled into Thurles, led by their Ringmaster the Minister for Property Tax, Water and higher Bin Charges, Mr Alan Kelly. You know the guy I mean; in April 2010, as an Irish MEP he had his Twitter account supposedly “compromised” and God forbid, if the little ‘divils’ didn’t write; “just got stopped by a pikey, scuse me sir, ya haven’t seen a black mare and white pony go by ave ya??? err no sorry”. The word ‘Pikey’ here in “Éire of the Welcomes” is rightly considered a derogatory insulting racist reference, directed at members of our Travelling Community. (It was on the back of this insulting Tweet that no doubt gave justification to Labour’s Joan Burton to raise Kelly’s political stature to the post of “Minister for the Homeless”.)
The other partner of this Circus, Fine Gael’s Minister for Nothing or Other, Mr Noel Coonan also arrived into Thurles today; no doubt to familiarise himself after five years with the Thurles layout. After all when you get a few extra Saturday shoppers walking the town one thinks in the words of our Saviour Jesus Christ “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
The late session with the Taoiseach Enda Kenny in Templemore last night must have kept the junior Minister for Something or Other, Mr Tom Hayes running late; no sign of him.
Anyway, I digress; sure feck-it, unable to afford the price of a parking space in Liberty Square, didn’t I miss both or all of these fine publicly elected representatives.
Question: Why bother, I hear our readers say? Answer: I suppose FirstlyI wanted to sincerely thank all three for staying up in Dáil Éireann to vote, thus supporting their ‘Party Whips’ wishes; that they should support the largest majority government in the history of this State, instead of being down here in their constituencies of Co. Tipperary spreading “The Recovery.” Well done boys; as FG MEP Phil Hogan would have said “That’s real patriotism being expressed lads.” Secondly: I wanted to thank them both for creating 135,000 jobs since 2012, and to explain that I understand perfectly, unlike other ungrateful bastards, why all three of these boyo’s failed miserably to find even one job, over the last 5 years in Tipperary, until 6 weeks before the forthcoming 2016 General Election. Thirdly: Boys, what happened, on your watch, to ‘The Bolton Library’ down the road in Cashel?
Question:What the hell is ‘The Bolton Library’ I hear you say?’ Answer: Read on and be enlightened!
“The other day the old landlord came by for his rent; I told him no money I had. Besides, t’wasn’t fair to ask me to pay; the times were so awfully bad. He felt discontent at not getting his rent and he shook his big head with a frown. Says he, “I’ll take half,” but says I with a laugh, “Do you want your (‘Lobbyists’) old lobby washed down?”
The traditional Irish folk-song “Do You Want Your Old Lobby Washed Down” appears to have first originated on the borders of counties Tipperary and Cork. Traditionally, ‘washing down a lobby’ was an alternative method of payment of your rent if money was scarce; the equivalent in later years of washing dishes at a restaurant, should you find yourself unable to afford your already consumed meal.
In the lyrics of this old song these words, depending on your particular mindset, are seen as perhaps being an intended double entendre. (‘Double Entendre’, meaning a figure of speech in which a phrase could be misunderstood to be somewhat risqué.)
New Recycling Regulation
Increased Recycling Charges
The Minister for Privatising Irish Water, Tipperary’s most ambitious Mr Alan Kelly, has signed off on plans to make people pay for every kilo of waste they produce; including the contents of our green bins. Most of us I suspect have been notified about this fact over the past seven days, with correspondence arriving from our waste disposal companies.
It would appear that not only is Mr Kelly looking for his own P45, but also seeking P45’s for his Fine Gael and other Labour Party colleagues in the forth coming general election.
Mr Kelly and his Labour / Fine Gael colleagues are being adamant on the doorsteps, that they never increased taxes on the Irish people during their soon to end term in office. Flat Taxes, introduced during a period of austerity, i.e. like Water Charges, Property Charges, Bin Charges and now the promised new Increased Recycling Charges, forced on people with no ability to pay, it seems are simply that, “Charges” not taxes. (Thank God the elderly got that €3 per week in their Old Age Pensions.)
Lobbyists or Government, who is to blame?
Was Mr Kelly advised to break this news before a general election by his loaned advisor Mr Cónán O’Broin or by his permanent adviser Mr Jim McGrath, latter reportedly earning jointly some €159,000, or did he just decide to ‘blab’ without their knowledge? So who is behind this new tax increase being imposed on the Irish people, including working people, families and communities? Was it ‘Lobbyists’ representing Waste Disposal Companies wearing a track in Mr Kelly’s plush carpeted office or was it our present coalition cabinet desperately seeking something that could take another tax hike? Lets face it, further taxing on the now essential motor vehicle would have been out of the question.
The plain answer to the above is “I don’t know”, but Mr Kelly does, so ask him yourself when he next appears on your doorstep canvassing. Tomorrow you will be told that this new increased Recycling Charge is a ruse to create long term rural employment.
One thing we do know down here in rural Ireland; where the buses no longer run and where rural doctors no longer wish to function; the black bags of household rubbish will soon begin to reappear, dumped smugly after dark once again on our rural mountainsides, our rural back lanes and in our uninhabited bog lands.
What has rural Ireland done that they have been neglected, abandoned and deserted by this Labour / Fine Gael Government? In the words of an old Irish curse / hex and addressed to Mr Kelly ; “Sir, May you find the bees but never the honey.”
Travelling through Dublin in recent weeks, one could not help but notice the number of homeless people begging and sleeping rough in the streets of this same city. By sleeping rough I mean men and women of all ages sleeping or bedded down in the freezing open air, seeking refuge in filthy doorways, parks and bus shelters; people sleeping in buildings or other places not designed for human habitation e.g. car parks, living what now appears to be the socially acceptable “Plastic Bag” and “Wet Cardboard” lifestyle.
Today the Tipperary Kelly / Coonan Circus rolled into Thurles, led by their Ringmaster the Minister for Property Tax, Water and higher Bin Charges, Mr Alan Kelly. You know the guy I mean; in April 2010, as an Irish MEP he had his Twitter account supposedly “compromised” and God forbid, if the little ‘divils’ didn’t write; “just got stopped by a pikey, scuse me sir, ya haven’t seen a black mare and white pony go by ave ya??? err no sorry”. The word ‘Pikey’ here in “Éire of the Welcomes” is rightly considered a derogatory insulting racist reference, directed at members of our Travelling Community. (It was on the back of this insulting Tweet that no doubt gave justification to Labour’s Joan Burton to raise Kelly’s political stature to the post of “Minister for the Homeless”.)
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