Class Actions are not legal in Ireland but that is the sort of thing planned, nonetheless!
Yesterday, representatives of all the groups against pylons
and wind farms met to decide a Month of Action. The most exciting agreement was
to take a joined legal action against the Government’s Energy Policy in its
entirety. Yes, that is all concerned individuals in the country and yes, that
is probably everyone in Ireland. The action will be against the plan to lay or hang heavy cable the length and breadth of Ireland, fed by hundreds of massive inefficient wind farms, set to overshadow community after community. Until now, it was still open for debate as to
whether developments should go ahead. Some people might still say ‘wind energy
is good isn’t it, at least its not fossil fuels?’ It was every man for himself. Some looking to meet profits, Green Energy targets, investors' needs, developers,
local councils, individual households, communities and organized groups, appeals
to An Bord Pleanala, the National level Planning Office, and eventually the
high court as well, to get a judicial review. If you were an individual going to the High
Court to try and stop a wind farm next to your house, you had to have your special appeal ready – the unique flora and fauna,
the protected species and habitat, an EPA and/or SP or whatever they are, to
prove it! Until yesterday, each person was on their own, relying on their own
funding, their own environmental survey, their own solicitor.
But, at once, in the table-by-table discussion at the
meeting, the common denominator arose. Corruption. This is the one thing that
can be said for each and every case. We have oceans of evidence for a claim
that the national planning office is routinely granting permission to build wind
farms against the guidance and ruling of its own officials, at local level. What happens is
that local councils refuse the Wind Farms planning permission, having received
hundreds of objections by residents. Then the developer, eg Gaeltech
immediately appeal to the national planning office and are given the go ahead.
One person asked, who really has ‘the dirt’ to blow the whistle like
that on the government? Another said, every one has at least one experience of
how the system has shafted democracy, common sense and human decency. Thirty groups, possibly more, giving even spoken evidence would go a long way
to exposing 1. the willful destruction of peoples’ homes, the environment and rights. 2. Even
past interviews, on line, demonstrate how key politicians intend to export
power, not merely 'do a necessary upgrade to the electricity grid' as they told the people. 3. New technology has not been
explored and the wind farms they’re putting up are inefficient rejects, 10
years outdated. At first, an injunction could certainly be justified, stopping
the further erection of windmills and pylons. The policy change, we will ask
for, is the extension of the step back distance to ten times its current few
metres. This is what distance a turbine must be from a house.
The government
are relying on an old divide and conquer approach. If you go into local
planning office, you will be told that planning applications for wind farms are ‘Confidential’. These should be public offices and papers. Pylons, even a hundred metres high do not seem to need permission at all. I was
even told by an ESB (those who manage the grid) representative that they have
‘squatters rights’ on my garden. How low is that? If they don’t happen to have
a line across your garden already, they can make a compulsory purchase of it.
(Look on facebook for the inspired man here who made the end of his garden a
fine art installation and charges €500 an hour to even talk to him).
So, suffice to say, it was a good meeting. We worked out how
to turn the tables. Instead of people having to prove that life and places are
valuable to people who don’t care about life and nature, now the orchestrators will
individually have to prove that they are not corrupt. I think we all know how
that kind of a case will go. So, everyone, don’t hold back. Ring www.transparency.ie, they are part of
Transparency International – an uncompromising not-for-profit organization to
whom you can give a name. For example, Phil Hogan and Pat Rabbitte who have
masterminded the least environmentally sensitive plans for Ireland and made
sure they happened. Transparency International will check out if they have been
compromised by ‘vested interests’, bribes, affiliations and generally monitor the transparency of their behavior. By the time we get to court, there will be
so much ammunition that these two and many more at every level will be cringing
and resigning. One good example of how this works is John Connor who moved from
An Bord Pleanala, National Planning Management, to a management position at
Eirgrid, the incompetent authority over the 300 billion
pylon/substation/wind/frack/oil exploration… you name it, we are in for it, if
we don’t stop it, policy.
Also, the meeting brought up some great protest places – The
Wind Energy AGM in Kilkenny next month. The Eirgrid talk, up in Dublin Castle, and generally raising awareness of the plans and corruption happening. The
exciting win for the Save Kilkenny Campaign, which saw an injunction put on
Kilkenny Council and Contractors to halt work on the CAS bridge, was demonstration
of the New Paradigm winning against the old. The old is entrenched, compromised
by inappropriate loyalties and greed. The New is now forming a system for achieving
positive change. It is fluid, each person operating as an individual, doing
what feels best for them. It might be writing letters, talking to the
politicians/public/press. It might be direct action, like a picket line and protest, to
frustrate the inexhorable brazen implementation of plans, unchecked. It could
be exercising legal weight. It is the combination of these that actually worked
quite quickly, someone pointed out today. What was it, 9 weeks? If it was just
legal, it could have been years to raise funds and get it heard in court. If it
was just protests, the tide of public support could have been turned away by
bad press and manipulative strategies to undermine the efforts and ignore the
content of the objections. If it had just been political, the few councilors
with integrity would have been suspended and the rest batoned down the hatchs
with these words ‘our hands are tied’. A fluid, committed group, working with integrity
So, join a group, local or national, officially request, of your local planning office, that
you are notified of all planning applications for Wind Farms or any other
Energy related applications. This means you don’t have to scour every daily
paper to keep an eye on what they’re doing. They are obliged to let you know. Get one representative of your group to each
council meeting, again to hear what is being planned. Also, send the names of developers, groups, institutions and
individuals who you think might be working with an ulterior motive, to
Transparency International. Basically, lets pool our skills and take heart, confidence and
inspiration from a commonly-held goal: Save Ireland. The government can do better than make Ireland a power
station for other countries.
Can I take this opportunity to invite you all to the World
Wide Frack Down Party on the 9th October. This was John Lennon’s
birthday and is my chancery birthday. Here in Kilkenny, we will again shine a light on
appalling ideas, badly executed and suggest first that they should stop and
second what we can do instead! That is, lets explore new technology. No grid,
no turbines, just plausible power for all. As they used to say, in the Bionic
Man, ‘We have the technology!’
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