Sir, I was glad to see in your issue of June 25th a letter raising the matter of further mobile telephone relay masts going up on some of our outstanding scenic features. These will be additional to the Telecom masts already disfiguring our landscape, and widely resented.
The letter in question refers to three masts planned for Co Sligo. We have applications for County Wexford also. In fact, it would appear that Esat Digiphone intends to put up a further 700 such steel masts all over the country, all 90 feet high, on the highest and most prominent peaks available.
If permitted by the planning authorities, these structures will result in irreparable damage to some of our finest scenery.
The decision to licence a second national mobile telephone system was a political one. No doubt very little thought was given to environmental consequences. The most obvious way out now would appear to be a further political decision, namely to require Telecom Eireann to allow Esat equal use of its existing masts on suitable terms, of course. Unless some such solution is adopted, every county council in the country will be faced with a planning issue which defies all normal procedures.
In the meantime, all organisations and members of the public who love and value our national scenery and its cultural and historic associations must join in actively opposing, before it is too late, this proposed proliferation of disfiguring structures. Yours, etc. Ballymore, Camolin, Co Wexford.
