Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has rejected a planning application for a mobile phone mast due to have been located next to a primary school in Stillorgan, Dublin.
The planning body cited proximity to Mount Anville Primary School as one of its reasons for rejecting the application by Hutchison 3G Ireland for a 9.8 metre flat pole, with three antennae and point-to-point dish at Lr Kilmacud Road.
Cllr Gearóid Ó Keeffe (Ind), who campaigned against the installation, described the local authority's decision as an "enlightened" one.
"I will be proposing in the autumn that we would not allow any of these developments within one to two kilometres of schools," he added.
Hutchison, a subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based conglomerate, is already behind schedule on rolling out a new third-generation (3G) network in Ireland, having been awarded a licence for the service in June 2002. The firm has contracted Esat BT to manage the building of its 3G telecoms network, which would allow mobile phone users to beam video and multimedia signals to their handsets.
It had originally planned to have a service in place by last January.
