Landmark National, the US company which plans a £12 million resort at Doonbeg, Co Clare, said yesterday that its scheme represents the best way to safeguard the "unique sand dune system at the White Strand". This was immediately challenged by Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE), which opposes the Doonbeg development. It maintains that 377 acres of "pristine marine landscape" - formerly designated as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) - would be irrevocably damaged.
Landmark National, now trading here as the Irish National Golf Club Ltd, said the company's plan - backed by Shannon Development and the Department of Tourism - would "stop the coastal erosion, sand extraction and agricultural land reclamation which have damaged the site for a decade".
Mr Doug Barton, the company's chief executive, said the plan submitted to Clare County Council outlines a "good management" regime for the remaining 51-acre SAC - as delineated by Duchas, the heritage service - as well as a hotel and an 18-hole links golf course, designed by Greg Norman, outside this conservation area.
He described a recent scientific report on Doonbeg commissioned by the Heritage Council, which recommended that the original 377-acre SAC be retained in its entirety, "as extremely impractical". It would even conserve "those areas that it admits are of no environmental value".
FIE said the Doonbeg site was one of Ireland's few unspoilt sand dune systems and had been the subject of a contract, signed by the Government and the European Commission in 1995, which committed the authorities to prepare conservation plan for the dune system at White Strand.
"We strongly reject the charges of the developer that the Heritage Council study is `impractical' and offers `no compensation to landowners and no finding for conservation'. Funds exist for the purchase of sites like Doonbeg for the nation and for full and generous compensation of owners."
FIE said it was still being denied information about redrawing the boundaries of the Doonbeg SAC. "The studies justifying this change have not been supplied to environmentalists on the grounds that the actions were taken a month before the new Freedom of Information provisions became law."
