New Events

National

no events posted in last week

Blog Feeds

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Human Rights in Ireland
Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link News Round-Up Tue Dec 24, 2024 00:40 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Can Science Tell Us the Meaning of Life? Mon Dec 23, 2024 19:54 | Dr David Bell
At Christmas time, Dr David Bell reflects on what has true value in this world, the limits of science to tell us what that is and what a baby in a manger might have to say about it.
The post Can Science Tell Us the Meaning of Life? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Non-Crime Hate Incidents Surge in Half of Police Forces Despite Government Crackdown Mon Dec 23, 2024 17:46 | Will Jones
The number of?non-crime hate incidents?recorded by police has surged in half of Britain's forces despite attempts by the previous Government to crack down on the practice, official data show.
The post Non-Crime Hate Incidents Surge in Half of Police Forces Despite Government Crackdown appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Reeves?s Simplistic Thinking Spawned This Budget from Hell Mon Dec 23, 2024 15:44 | David Craig
Simplistic linear thinking by Rachel from Accounts and the Treasury spawned this Budget from hell, says David Craig. A systems thinker would have known it would send the economy into a doom loop of recession and decline.
The post Reeves’s Simplistic Thinking Spawned This Budget from Hell appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link British Drivers Steering Away From New Cars In Their Droves Mon Dec 23, 2024 13:00 | Sallust
British car-buyers are turning away from new vehicles in their droves and keeping their reliable old petrol models going for far longer as Labour's Net Zero war on affordable motors heats up.
The post British Drivers Steering Away From New Cars In Their Droves appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?113 Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:42 | en

offsite link Pentagon could create a second Kurdish state Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:31 | en

offsite link How Washington and Ankara Changed the Regime in Damascus , by Thierry Meyssan Tue Dec 17, 2024 06:58 | en

offsite link Statement by President Bashar al-Assad on the Circumstances Leading to his Depar... Mon Dec 16, 2024 13:26 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?112 Fri Dec 13, 2024 15:34 | en

Voltaire Network >>

Why I could learn to love the Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Bill

category national | rights, freedoms and repression | feature author Wednesday June 21, 2006 19:21author by anarchaeologist - GrassrootsDissent / IMC Editors Report this post to the editors

Analysis of Strategic Infrastructure Bill

featured image
SIB: bodes well for the fast-tracking of pollution projects
The Strategic Infrastructure Bill (2006) is the pinacle of two Ministers’ of Environment contempt for ‘the law’ since this regime came to power in 1997. It was spotted as far back as last September, and again in February of this year. It bodes well for the fast-tracking of pollution projects such as roads and incinerators, and for monuments to pesimism such as prisons. From now on, nothing is sacred in this, once, sacred isle. The Bill is currently making its way through the Houses of the Oireachtas.

Among other things, this Bill intends that: a local group must be active for more than 12 months and have a stated aim and objective of environmental protection, before they can even apply for a judicial review of a particular case impacting on them or thrie community.

From the News Wire: Planning law in this country is a joke. For years the odds have been stacked in favour of unsustainable development and now the FF/PD coalition is making it harder for communities to legally challenge those who are making fortunes out of wrecking the place, be they speculators, developers, multi-nationals, politicans, contractors, quarrymen or even archaeologists (but not this one)....Anarchaeologist continues on wire.

Language is used very effectively here to cloak this attack on a fundamental right to participate in the planning process (even if it costs you €20 to participate, which has in itself been judged illegal by the European Commission). Check out one persion's attempts to get to grips with it at the link below.

I don't claim to understand many of the points that Chris Murray has raised regarding the Bill, however Section 50 strikes me as being particularly significant, where a local group must be active for more than 12 months and have a stated aim and objective of environmental protection, before they can even apply for a judicial review of a particular case impacting on them or thrie community. Because most infrastructural planning cases are taken up by local groups as opposed to individuals.

I should encourage anyone involved in any sort of community organisation to immediately add something to this effect to their constitution, but I won't. The road to a judicial review is a long and expensive one. The only winners here are the legal profession and of course the developers who will invariably have more money, more influence within the judiciary (not to mention the local planning authorities) and at the end of the day more time than you have.

For time is really of the essence. They don't have kids to be looked after, dinners to be put on the table, bills to pay. They can fly from sites on the west coast to judicial hearings in Dublin in an hour. They don't have to spend hours on a bus or 100s of Euro on petrol to participate in the planning process.

Moreover, they can pay the best planing consultants in the country to defend their projects and argue their cases at oral hearings. They don't have to spend long hours into the night researching this shit and typing out a planning observation to the council which will be ignored, or a planning appeal to An Bord Pleanala which will, if you're smart enough, be at least considered.

But surely if your case is founded on points of law, on the EU Environmental Directive or on Local Agenda 21, you can't lose? The recent case taken by An Taisce to An Bord Pleanála in relation to the on-shore development of the Corrib gas field surely had to succeed because it was founded on sound points of law? Well now that law is being changed again.

So what do you do? In Erris the communities around Rossport discovered in the past that their own inspectors' reports don't mean shit with An Board Pleanála. Reports can and will be overruled. In any case, much of the proposed Corrib gas development has by-passed what's piously referred to as the planning process. Basically elements within the County Council have wanted this development to go ahead (for whatever reason...) and simply rubber-stamped it through. Hopefully, they'll all be fucked out of it in the next election, but I wouldn't put any money on it. Anyway, you can't get rid of senior county council officials that easily, unless your local friendly multi-national offers them a job.

What's significant about the Rossport business is that the people of Erris have undertaken a fundamental critique of how planning law interacts with what passes in these parts for local democracy. And they see it's shit. And they're doing something about it by ensuring that no construction work, or development to give it its legal and oddly unsatisfactory definition, takes place along the pipeline route or at the terminal site. They're not sitting on their arses writing letters to the papers and have long since given up on those they've elected to serve them (with the exception I suppose of Cowley).

If the SIB passes into the statute books (as it's surely going to), more communities on this island are going to realise that the law is shit and they're going to fight it. And fighting the law is a serious business, but in Erris it's being done on their terms, in their locality.
And the best place to fight of course, is on your own home ground.

Hopefully the lessons of Erris will be picked up on elsewhere. Fuck the law, it's not going to be a useful weapon in these sort of cases anymore, if it ever was in the first place. If the SIB finally convinces people that the planning system is stacked against them and encourages them to explore other avenues of struggle, then it mightn't be such a bad thing after all.

 #   Title   Author   Date 
   Selective exception     News Watcher    Sun Jun 18, 2006 01:03 
   Too right Anarchaeologist, very well put.     Niall Harnett.    Sun Jun 18, 2006 01:29 
   Don't be fooled by Cowley     the way.    Sun Jun 18, 2006 01:42 
   Totalitatian.     John mcDermott    Fri Jun 23, 2006 00:48 
   Its a long way from here to Clare.     John McDermott    Sat Jun 24, 2006 15:28 
   Ignorance is bliss     Donegal Danny    Sat Jun 24, 2006 23:31 


Number of comments per page
  
 
© 2001-2024 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy