Sir, – Your beautiful photograph of Gougane Barra by Neill Lucey accompanying the article "Row over planned wind farm at Cork beauty spot Gougane Barra" (News, April 26th) shows a place and landscape which has had a sacred significance since pre-Christian times but which is now to be trivialised by an unsightly wind-farm project.
Three observations are prompted by the decision of An Bord Pleanála to approve this development: whatever passes for landscape and heritage policy isn’t worth the paper it may be written on; the opinions of those most directly affected, the local communities, and of those most directly engaged, the professional planners, can be all too easily discounted; and when convenient, energy policy can be used to trump any other argument. Yet again it would appear that a decision taken at board level by An Bord Pleanála overrides all else, including the expertise of its own and other professionals. What is the rationale, let alone the underlying democracy, of such an approach? – Yours, etc,
ARNOLD HORNER,
Glenageary,
Co Dublin.