Sir, - I wrote to you last June about a proposed fish factory at Rinmore Point, Fanad, Donegal. This development was to be assisted by Udaras na Gaeltachta on a site designated as a Special Area of Conservation and thus in theory by the same Minister - the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltachta and the Islands.
The Minister assured the Dail on May 7th of this year that, in spite of the fact that the designation process required under the Habitats directive is not completed three years after the deadline, the 200 sites published in March of 1997 have since then "enjoyed legal protection in full accordance with the terms of the Habitats directive". Yet construction began at Rinmore Point on June 9th.
How can Rinmore Point have been denied this protection, especially in view of the fact that the appeals board for the designation process announced by the Minister, to be chaired by Michael Mills, has yet to meet?
Ireland is the subject of legal action by the Commission because of its delays in implementing the Habitats directive, which should have been in place by April of 1994. Six of Ireland's leading NGO's - The Irish Peatland Conservation Council, Birdwatch Ireland, Coastwatch Europe, the Irish Wildlife Trust, Crann, and An Taisce - recently released a list of 24 sites designated for European protection which have been recently damaged or are under threat from development. Is this what the Minister called in the Dail a "very effective measure of protection to our proposed SAC sites"? - Yours, etc., Tony Lowes,
Chairman, An Taisce Natural Environment Group, Tailor's Hall, Back Lane, Dublin 8.