FIE wrote to Mary MacAlesse requesting her to convene the Council of State to consider referring the new Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2010 to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality.

The Supreme Court then tests its constitutionality in toto and the President may not sign the bill into law if it is found to be unconstitutional. The President invoked this power over the Planning Bill 1999's social housing provisions.

Amendments to Section 50 of the Bill, which ‘purports to implement the European legislation encouraging access to justice', does the opposite. Legal advice the organisation has received confirms that what the amendment does is prevent NGOs or others from receiving their costs when litigating environmental issues, even if they win.

The only exceptions will require the litigant to show that the matter is of "Public Importance" AND that there are "Special Circumstances" AND that it is "in the Interests of Justice" to make such an award of Costs. This is a clear barrier to access to justice.

While much of the new legislation is forward thinking, the inclusion of this amendment to the Act will have devastating consequences for environmental justice in Ireland.

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Request to convene the Council of State to consider referring the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2010 to the Supreme Court

Dear President;

We write to request you to convene the Council of State to consider referring the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2010 to the Supreme Court to determine the constitutionality of the amendments to Section 50 of the Planning and Development Act 2000.

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The success of a voluntary local environmental group in protecting this area from development highlights the failure of the National Parks and Wildlife Service to perform its statutory function. Ireland current faces 33 court proceedings in the European Court of Justice for environmental failings. 13 of these have been returned to the Court seeking daily fines, 4 more than when the current Minister for the Environment took office. Press Release.

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The Irish Examiner breaks the story of the eastern European workers who were sent onto Haulbowline Island to ‘clean up' the surface and shift 112,000 tons of contaminated material without any knowledge of the lethal content that countless reports had established was present.The Examiner ran the story largest on its front page yesterday but omitted the story from its website. Why?

People's health were put at risk because the operations that the Department of the Environment contracted to be done were unlicensed activities at an unauthorised hazardous landfill done without benefit of any environmental assessment whatsoever - and flying in the face of consultants' warnings of creating any disturbance going back more than 10 years - Reports that were not released to the contractors - or FIE - until more than 18 months of investigation.

If there is proof of a connection between the clean up work and these illnesses then what defence can the State make when they themselves wrote a contract for work that was unauthorised and illegal? And still their last letter to us makes no mention of applying for a licence - the cover up went too far and can't be reversed now.

See the photos of the cleanup   |   Read the State's response to our letter threatening legal action if they don't apply for a licence. | Read the Examiner Story | Read FIE's Toxic Island illustrated study  | and the studies that were never shown to the workers.

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LNG COURT CASE WITHDRAWN

The judicial review of the proposed Shannon LNG terminal ended after Justice John McMenamin.- who jailed the Rossport Five - made it clear that if the case was not withdrawn it faced certain failure.

The case tried to highlight the fact that unpopular large projects like Shell's on-shore gas terminal, the Clare Explosives factory [with an oral hearing next week], and the Kerry liquid natural gas terminal are being sited in or beside areas designated for nature protection without ever examining the worst-case scenarios.

There are rarely environmental problems with these installations when they are operating normally. It is only when you have a major emergency that major impacts arise. There is a black hole in the planning process for this and other similar installations.

Press Release

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FIE is challenging in the High Court the first decision to be given for a project under the new ‘fast track' Strategic Infrastructure Act, a Liquefied Natural Gas [LNG] Terminal near Tarbert on the Shannon estuary.

Until recently, a planning decision given by a local authority can be appealed to An Bord Pleanala. But under the 2006 Strategic Infrastructure Act An Bord Pleanala itself makes the planning decision in the first instance and there is no further appeal.

Since the Aarhus Convention, European Directives have given citizens the right to a review of a decision that is ‘timely, equitable, and not prohibitive expensive'. It must be of all ‘substantive and procedural' legal matters.

That is what FIE is seeking in its application to the Court. In another application to the High Court a member of the Kilcolgan Residents Association is also seeking a Judicial Review with ‘safety, environmental and procedural' grounds for the action.

In fact, the decision infringes at least five European Directives - the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive, the Seveso Directive on Major Accidents, the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive, the Habitats Directive and the Water Framework Directive.

Read our Press release

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