A recent poll shows that the public are in favour of a revival of deposit–and–return systems. The chief bottle washers, however, remain unconvinced

God be with the days when we used to go back to the shop with our empty bottles of Taylor Keith lemonade and get refunds. It may have been just a few pence for each bottle returned, but every little helped, and the extra coins could be used to supplement our pocket money so we could buy more sweets – or more red lemonade.

A recent opinion poll carried by Coastwatch Ireland found that many people from the over–40s bracket are nostalgic for the days when Ireland still had deposit–and–return schemes for drinks containers. It also found there is overwhelming public support for the return of the deposit and return.

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Procedures in six local authorities to be examined after part of review quashed

Six local authorities are to be subject to new investigations for planning irregularities by independent planning consultants to be appointed by Minister of State for Planning Jan O’Sullivan.

Planning procedures and practices in Dublin and Cork city councils as well as Cork, Carlow, Galway and Meath county councils had been examined in an internal review by the Department of the Environment.

“I am determined to uphold the integrity of the planning system,” Ms O’Sullivan said. “It is vital that scrutiny and evaluation of the planning process is not only fair and objective, but is also seen to be so by the public.”

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Plans to install warning signs at four storm water retention ponds in east Cork have been abandoned after residents complained they could adversely affect their house values.
Midleton Town Council refilled holes prepared for the signs following a petition signed by 43 residents of Millbrook Court, on Millbrook Estate. The petition asked that the holes be refilled, while expressing concern over signage placement and a potentially negative impact on house values, insurance and sale potential.

Midleton Town Clerk Joe McCarthy says the signs, measuring approximately 2 feet wide by 2.5 feet high and on standard poles of approximately 6 feet, were rejected “without being seen”. 

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Two Cork landowners have mounted a High Court challenge against a decision of the authorities to grant planning permission for a windfarm near their home.

Klaus Balz and Hanna Heuback, of Bear No Gaoithe, Inchigeelagh, Co Cork, are opposed to a decision by An Bord Pleanála to grant planning permission to Cleanrath Windfarm Ltd to construct 11 turbines up to heights of 126m and other structures including an 85m–high meteorological mast at Cleanrath, Co Cork.

The couple live and operate a shrubbery business just 650m from the nearest turbine on the proposed development.

Yesterday Eamon Galligan, for the applicants, told the High Court that in Jun 2011, Cork County Council refused to grant planning permission for the project.

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Politicians and the fish farming industry are acting to abate concerns following eating health experts’ warning over Norwegian farmed salmon toxicity levels.

“I don’t recommend pregnant women, children, or young people eat farmed salmon. There is too much uncertainty regarding the amount of toxins salmon contains and how these affect children, adolescents and pregnant women,”Anne–Lise Bjørke Monsen, specialist at Bergen’s Haukeland University Hospital told VG in article including chief physician Bjørn Bolann.

Ms Bjørke Monsen referred to the presence of Persistant Organic Pollutants (POPs) accumulating in the fat–rich fish. Included in this group is PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane).

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Only 7% of farmers willing to accept recommended protection

Eyeries based Friends of the Irish Environment has written to IFA President John Bryan asking him to address the issue of set backs or buffer zones for farm animals grazing near water courses.

The letter follows further boil water notices being issued in Roscommon because of another outbreak of cryptosporidium, which is transmitted in the faeces of humans and animals. While the spreading of the waste is controlled, the grazing by animals is subject only to a set back or buffer zone of 1.5 metres. This was reduced from 3 metres to 1.5 metres in 2004 as part of an agreement between the IFA and the DoAFF. The recommended minimum set back is 5 metres.

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Support for EU agriculture commissioner Dacian Ciolos and Ireland’s smaller farmers was expressed by the environmental lobby group Friends of the Irish Environment as the two–day informal EU council of agriculture ministers got under way at Dublin Castle this week.

The organisation said that ‘misinformation in the media suggested that the sole aim of EU agricultural policy is to ensure ‘viable food production’. In fact, said FIE, the sustainable management of natural resources and the balanced development of rural area throughout the EU (and beyond) compose the other equally important objectives of EU agricultural policy.’

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Second phase will look at environmental impact of genetically modified potatoes

Blight–resistant plant could be ready for market in under five years, says Teagasc

Teagasc hopes to begin planting more than 5,000 potato plants in the next two weeks, in the second phase of its study into the environmental impact of blight–resistant genetically modified (GM) potatoes.

The agricultural development body began the study last year by planting 48 GM and non–GM potato plants at its Oak Park crops research centre in Carlow. Its senior research officer Dr Ewen Mullins said he hoped planting would get under way later this week if the ground was not too dry. About 5,274 plants will be planted across two acres. One–third are GM plants, one–third are non–GM and the final third are the organic Sarpo Mira variety.

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Celebrity chef Darina Allen and the international Slow Food organisation have clashed with Bord Iascaigh Mhara over its proposed 500–hectare organic salmon farm off the Aran Islands.

In a letter to Simon Coveney, the agriculture and marine minister, the renowned owner of the Ballymaloe Cookery School accused BIM of placing information in part two of its environmental impact statement (EIS) that incorrectly “created the impression that Slow Food supported and endorsed the proposed project”.

In the letter, Ms Allen stated that BIM, which is spearheading the project, took “a passage from the Burren Smokehouse website allegedly without the knowledge or permission of the owner and added that she is a member of Slow Food and Good Food Ireland”. 

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FRIENDS of the Irish Environment has appealed two of Minister Simon Coveney’s recent grants of 34 aquaculture licences in Castletmaine Estuary, County Kerry.

According to the lobby group: “The proposal to cultivate invasive species of non–native oysters and non–native clams and mussels in a Special Area of Conservation and Special Area of Protection for Birds flies in the face of reason and undermines a recent ruling by the European Court of Justice.”

The Minister determines that the loss of up to 15% of the site does not undermine the sites integrity, ruling that “finding of damage to that site is not necessarily incompatible with there being no adverse effects on its integrity”.

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To tackle the rising scourge of tuberculosis in cattle there are three possible measures: culling badgers, vaccination and controlling cattle movements. A new report from MPs on Wednesday, rushed out ahead of vote in the Commons, concludes that vaccination is “no magic bullet”. I completely agree. But the fact that vaccination is hard does not mean badger culling is an easy way to control TB in cattle. In fact, as I have covered many times, the scientists who know most about culling are adamant that shooting badgers is, in Lord Krebs’s words, a “mindless” way to tackle bovine TB.

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The dam is beginning to crack, faster than I would have believed possible. Britain, one of the world’s most zoophobic nations, is at last considering the return of some of its extinct and charismatic mammal species. While wolves, lynx, bears, bison, moose, boar and beavers have been spreading across the continent for decades, into countries as developed and populous as ours, and while they have been widely welcomed in those places, here we have responded to this prospect with unjustified horror. Or perhaps I shouldn’t say “we”. The population as a whole tends to be more sympathetic to reintroductions than the tiny number of people who own most of the land¹.

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The dust hasn’t even settled yet on our economic collapse, singularly caused by the financial and banking system with the support of a complicit government.

Yet it has not stopped our financial services sector, their cheerleaders and fellow travellers from insisting that we need to get back to a lighter regulatory environment, else we may lose some of these companies.

In essence they are asking us to trust them. But events across the world would suggest that corporates have little responsibility to the community at large, so why should we? These companies are profit takers and their major, perhaps even sole responsibility, is to their shareholders.

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Could the writings of ancient Irish monks and scribes hold a key to our cold weather patterns? A group of Irish and international researchers think so.
Studying descriptions of weather in the medieval Irish writings and comparing them with measurements taken from ice cores, researchers have successfully linked the climatic aftermath of volcanic eruptions to extreme cold weather events here over a 1,200–year period.

Researchers from universities including Harvard, UCC, UCD, Trinity College and Queens University Belfast assessed over 40,000 Irish and Latin entries in the Irish annals. Kept by educated scribes in monastic centres until the 13th century and by historians until 1649, the annals describe major events in Ireland’s history.

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Facebook And Twitter Once Again Show Social Media’s Effectiveness As Organizing Tools

As many as 2 million people in 436 cities in 52 countries around the world may have demonstrated in March Against Monsanto protests conducted Saturday, according to the Associated Press, which cited event organizers.

The demonstrators targeted the St. Louis–based Monsanto Co. (NYSE:MON) because of its historical role in introducing genetically modified products into the food supply. GM products are controversial for a number of reasons. One centers on health risks; another centers on labeling.

Because labeling is not mandatory but voluntary in many jurisdictions, such as the U.S., consumers are not universally made aware which products are GM and which products are not GM. Hence, one sign singled out by AP in its coverage of the March Against Monsanto protest in Los Angeles Saturday read, “Label GMOs, It’s Our Right to Know.”

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Study shows a severe accident at a British plant would not require evacuation
Britain’s nuclear power plant building programme poses a “very low” risk to Ireland, a study from the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland has found.

However, the study was criticised by Friends of the Irish Environment and An Taisce, who have mounted challenges to the first of an expected eight British nuclear plants, the proposed Hinkley Point C reactor in Somerset, England.

The institute’s chief executive, Dr Ann McGarry, said severe radiological effects in Ireland were “unlikely”, but “a socio–economic impact” would be felt in the event of a severe accident.

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The discovery of huge quantities of toxic pesticides at a salmon farm in Scotland has escalated fears for a facility planned for Bantry Bay.

The Save Bantry Bay committee has reiterated calls for food and marine Simon Coveney to refuse planning permission for a new salmon farm in the world–famous bay after it emerged huge quantities of the toxic pesticide, Teflubenzuron, were discovered at a salmon farm site in Scotland.

An investigation is underway at the Marine Harvest facility after the discovery that toxic pesticide residues hundreds of times above environmental limits had been detected.

However, Marine Harvest Ireland insists the toxic pesticides are not used at their facility in Bantry Bay.

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Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan has expressed concern over the loss of blue flag status for some Irish beaches over what he called a “statistical glitch” and has asked his department to raise the matter with the European Commission.

Mr Hogan was speaking at the presentation of the awards in Dublin yesterday. The number of beaches around the country which received the coveted blue flag this year has dropped by 15 per cent compared to 2012. Marinas Some 70 beaches and four marinas were awarded the flag – an overall drop of 13.

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A common EU fisheries policy that lacks an effective oversight regime makes no sense.

It is an invitation to abuse, illegality and the destruction of stocks. While public attention has focused on the dumping of edible fish, a far more important matter is the unwillingness of governments to share information.

National databases on catches have been created and trawlers are required to maintain electronic logbooks. But that information remains closely guarded and is not shared between member states and fishery protection agencies.

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Environment Minister Alex Attwood has been accused of presiding over a “broken planning system” after a damning report by Unesco criticised the handling of a planned £100m golf resort development that threatens the setting of the Giant’s Causeway. The minister gave the green light to the Bushmills Dunes golf resort and spa early last year, overriding a recommendation by his own department’s NI Environment Agency that Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation) should be consulted.

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