Gormley steps in to protect Special Area of Conservation threatened by Corrib scheme
national |
environment |
other press 
Saturday February 07, 2009 10:51
by kermit
Bridge over river Corrib and by-pass threaten limestone pavement in Galway
It seems that the Galway by-pass may not now go ahead as planned after a dramatic eleventh-hour realisation by the Minister of the Environment that he is a member of the Green Party.
"I had no idea I had these sort of powers, to stop developments that threaten the country's environmental heritage and prevent loss of habitat, until one of my civil servants (who I was making tea for at the time) pointed out that the Galway by-Pass is not sponsored by Shell, and although the Corrib bridge has a confusing name, it actually has nothing to do with the Corrib natural gas (eight billion euro giveaway) scheme in Mayo!" the Minister is not reported to have said.
Gormley steps in to protect Special Area of Conservation
THE Minister for the Environment has ordered an eleventh hour halt to the approved 15km stretch of the Galway City Outer Bypass – including a new bridge over the Corrib – to allow him assess the road’s impact on a Special Area of Conservation.
Read the story here: (subscription required)
http://www.galwaynews.ie/6449-gormley-calls-halt-bypass...-work
Comments (5 of 5)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5I'm sure the minister is being completely impartial in this, and it has nothing to do Niall O Brolchain electoral ambitions at all.
we like broccoli
Actually the vested interest galway bypass propaganda campaign spearheaded by none other than the highly suspicious "property magnate on a teacher salary" mr Frank fahy worked rather well here in the west and had the local population quite convinced that this road would actually alleviate some of galway's chronic traffic problems (yeah right!!). So much so that it was actually tantamount to electoral suicide for the well meaning Mr o'B to oppose the bypass.
I fear ironically that the economic downturn has been our saviour in this case, as the obvious waste of money that was the galway bypass became a candidate for a decent cost cut on the "road" to gathering more money to bail out much bigger and more important vested interests than those (and the friends of those) who owned land along the proposed route of a rather useless road in the back ass of ireland. i.e. the Irish banking sector
I'm glad to see the back of this project, but the idea was that the funds saved from ditching this would be used instead to help fund an integrated public transport plan for Galway instead. Fat chance of that happening now though. Still, the traffic situation will be less of a problem, now that there are less people commuting into jobs in the morning. Eh folks?
"I had no idea I had these sort of powers, to stop developments that threaten the country's environmental heritage .."
So now the Muppetter for the Environment realises he has the power to stop developments that threaten the country's heritage? He has his knickers in a twist about a "slab of limestone pavement" when he thought he had no power to stop the destruction of the Screen Valley at Tara which contained multiple sites of global significance.
I wonder though has Cowan sent out his little green poodle to delay the development because funds are tight? Give the mutt a bone.
Green Poodle Surveys Precious Pavement
...being Green.
FF Muppet
it's rumoured that habitat is more powerful than archeology in the planning process.
dempsey's speech here would make you puke........... unless he really believes it to be true:
http://www.noeldempsey.ie/index.php/national-speech/spe...tureq
he and gormley might just be letting the dust settle gently as road projects are one by one shelved until the economy becomes more economic.
hope springs eternal
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