FF versus the environment

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday May 15, 2002 21:12 by Up the Dubs!

- and the planet!

Climate Change is happening and will get worse. Peat is the worst offender(worse than oil or coal)though on a global scale doesn't matter. Ireland has a commitment under Kyoto to cap its increace its Greenhouse Gas Emmissions at 13% above 1990 levels by 2010. At current rate of growth they will increace emmissions by 40%. The Celtic Tiger has no small role to play in this. The govt. could do a lot about this and has great plans such as carbon taxes which will a long time to fruition(you thought the plastic bags took a long time:-)). Today though they may as well have thrown those plans in the bin. Lip service how are ye? Then theres destruction to peatland, and a a whole gamut of knock on effects. Read on to see what Friends of the Irish Environment have to say and then the words from the horses mouth after

PRESS RELEASE

15 MAY 2002

CABINET INTERVENS IN PEAT POWERED ESB STATIONS LEGAL CHALLANGE

Background
Friends of the Irish Environment is engaged in a campaign to prevent the construction of two new peat fired power plants on the grounds that they are in breach of the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive, the Habitats Directive and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

FIE have taken the first two of these grounds to the High Court and are awaiting hearing.

The European Commission issued a Reasoned Opinion on 21st December 2001 which details the Commission's view that the failure to subject the
extraction of peat to EIA amounts to a failure by Ireland to fulfill obligations under the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive. This
Reasoned Opinion is the last step before bringing Ireland to the European Court of Justice for the second time for failing to apply this directive to
the destruction of peatlands.

The simple fact is that there has never been an environmental impact assessment of the extraction of peat in Ireland, in spite of the clear
impacts through flooding, siltation, and habitat destruction.

FIE now learns that in the middle of an election campaign, the Cabinet has decided to take unspecified measures to ensure that notwithstanding our challenge to the validity of the planning permissions and EPA licence, the
power plants are built. The only measure we can imagine in this regard is a guarantee to the ESB that the taxpayer will foot the bill if it finds it has built a power plant which then is declared illegal.

The questions are:
* What are these unspecified measures?
* Why have they not been specified?
* How much money has been committed?
* What is the Government's answer to the European Commission?

STATEMENT BY FRIENDS OF THE IRISH ENVIRONMENT

Friends of the Irish Environment, who have brought the Judicial Reviews, said
today that they "have every confidence in the High Court to vindicate citizens' rights to challenge decisions and believe the Court will enforce European Law and protect the remaining Irish peatland habitats." The group
said it has taken legal advice about the Statement issued by the Minister
for Foreign Affairs. "We have received no communication from the ESB or any Government department have no information as to the measures allegedly approved by the Cabinet."

Attribution: Spokesman

COPY OF BRIAN COWEN STATEMENT
Brian Cowen, Foreign Affairs 8 May, 2002

GOVERNMENT APPROVES MEASURES TO ALLOW ESB
POWER STATIONS TO PROCEED, ANNOUNCES MINISTER COWEN

Mr Brian Cowen, Minister for Foreign Affairs has announced that, at the Government meeting earlier today measures to allow the ESB proceed with the
building of new Power Stations at Shannonbridge and Lanesboro were formally approved by the Cabinet.

Minister Cowen went on to say,"The decison taken today by the Cabinet, which I warmly welcome, means that there is no obstacle to the commencement of construction work on the new Power Stations regardless of the judicial
review proceedings recently initiated in relation to planning permission. These proceedings had threatened to seriously delay construction work on the Power Stations.

I believe that it is critical to maintain the momentum for these large scale projects to proceed at this time and I am grateful to my Ministerial colleague, Mary O'Rourke for her early intervention to ensure that there is
no undue delay in the construction of these stations at Shannonbridge and Lanesboro. I was aware of the potential difficulties posed and was glad to support the measures put forward to allow work to commence at an early date."

ENDS