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The Saker

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Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.

offsite link Army Sergeant Travis Decker Murdered His Three Children After Being Denied Mental Health Care at JBL... Sat Jun 07, 2025 04:52 | JBLM Whistleblowers
A corrupt military police force and incompetent Commander who denied emergency mental health care and crisis counseling to an American service member resulted in the murder of the sergeant's three young daughters

offsite link Gaza doctor grieves her nine children killed in Israeli strike Sun May 25, 2025 20:00 | imc
Israeli regime continues it's slaughter
'The children were completely charred'

Paediatrician Alaa al-Najjar was treating victims of Israeli attacks when her children were killed by an Israeli strike on their home

offsite link British doctors working in Gaza describe territory as a ?slaughterhouse? Sat May 24, 2025 00:23 | imc
There?s no food getting in so people are starving,? surgeon Tom Potokar says
British doctors working in Gaza have described the territory as a ?slaughterhouse,? where the patients they are treating are severely malnourished.

Plastic surgeons and orthopedic specialists from the UK are based at the Amal and Nasser hospitals in Khan Younis in the south of the territory.

Dr. Tom Potokar, a plastic surgeon specializing in burn injuries, has worked in Gaza 16 times but said this mission had revealed a level of destruction far greater than his last visit in 2023,

offsite link It is time to talk about the Out of Control Immigration. Mon Mar 31, 2025 22:12 | imc
For the last few years since the CV19 scamdemic undocumented immigration into Ireland has surged. No one is allowed discuss it because they do not want any rational debate about it. If you do you are labelled an extremist. However this out of control immigration is fully facilitated by the Irish government and the EU and the shady figure behind the Neo Con movement pushing for endless war, wokeism and globalist agenda.

offsite link [Dublin] National Demonstration for Palestine: End Israeli Apartheid & Genocide Thu Mar 06, 2025 22:35 | ipsc
Sat, 22 March 2025, 13:00 Assemble at the Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Square, Dublin 1
The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, supported by over 150 Irish civil society organisations, has called another National Demonstration for Palestine on Saturday 22nd March.

The march will begin at the Garden of Remembrance at 1pm and finish outside the D?il on Molesworth Street/Kildare Street to bring our demands to the Irish government?s doorstep.

The Saker >>

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Human Rights in Ireland
Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Solar Panel Fault Known a Year Before School Fire Sat Jul 26, 2025 15:00 | Will Jones
Potential safety issues with solar panels were known to a council for more than a year before a fire broke out at a primary school this month, following a similar fire at a community centre in June 2024.
The post Solar Panel Fault Known a Year Before School Fire appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Ozzy Osbourne, Oasis of Heavy Metal Sat Jul 26, 2025 13:00 | James Alexander
Professor James Alexander, who once played in a Heavy Metal band, pays tribute to Ozzy Osbourne as a pioneer of the genre that for many young men supplies an identity and lifestyle. Yes, it's weird. But it has its place.
The post Ozzy Osbourne, Oasis of Heavy Metal appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Oh-So Biased Public Broadcasting Sat Jul 26, 2025 11:00 | Dr James Allan
The Republicans have finally done it ? they've cut funding to NPR, the public broadcaster so biased every single one of its 87 editorial staff are Democrats. If only the BBC were next, says Professor James Allan.
The post Oh-So Biased Public Broadcasting appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Is the US Losing the World to China? Sat Jul 26, 2025 09:00 | Noah Carl
Two major cross-national surveys published this year show that China is now perceived more positively than the US?by a sizeable margin. Is the US losing the world to China?
The post Is the US Losing the World to China? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link The Frightening Cost of Net Zero Sat Jul 26, 2025 07:00 | Paul Homewood
In a conversation with a GB News editor last week, Paul Homewood was reminded just how little understanding there is in the media of how much Net Zero is going to cost us. Time to spell it out in terrifying detail.
The post The Frightening Cost of Net Zero appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Judicial Review For Dursey Island Cable Car And Visitors Centre

category cork | environment | press release author Tuesday January 25, 2022 22:38author by foie Report this post to the editors

‘INEXPLICABLE IRRATIONALITY’ IN DURSEY ISLAND CABLE CAR & VISITORS CENTRE APPROVAL CLAIM IN HIGH COURT JUDICIAL REVIEW CLAIMS ALTERNATIVE PLAN TO €10M DURSEY ISLAND CABLE CAR NEVER ASSESSED

JUDICIAL REVIEW CLAIMS ALTERNATIVE PLAN TO €10M DURSEY ISLAND CABLE CAR NEVER ASSESSED

An Bord Pleanála’s decision to approve a €10m visitors centre and cable car for Dursey Island in west Cork may face a Judicial Review after Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE] were given permission today by High Court Justice Niamh Hyland to bring an application on 31 January, 2022.

JUDICIAL REVIEW CLAIMS ALTERNATIVE PLAN TO €10M DURSEY ISLAND CABLE CAR NEVER ASSESSED

An Bord Pleanála’s decision to approve a €10m visitors centre and cable car for Dursey Island in west Cork may face a Judicial Review after Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE] were given permission today by High Court Justice Niamh Hyland to bring an application on 31 January, 2022.

Cork County Council and Fáilte Ireland applied to An Bord Pleanala to replace the existing 6-person cable car with a two-cars desynchronised reversible cable car system capable of carrying 650 people an hour. The permission includes an extensive glass-fronted visitor centre with a gift shop and 84-person cafe on the mainland with parking for 80 cars and buses. The 6 km access road is to be improved with 10 passing bays.

Friends of the Irish Environment, An Taisce and Birdwatch Ireland all appealed against the grant of permission by Cork County Council in 2019. The groups called the proposal “Undesirable on multiple grounds", citing the “ecological sensitivity of Dursey” as well as the narrow stretch of road linking it to national network making it “unsuitable for a proposal of this scale.”

No Management Plan
Objections centred on the protection of the Special Area of Conservation and Special Protection Area for Birds, in particular the rare choughs. In their objection Birdwatch Ireland said there has been a 30% drop in the numbers of Chough, a species with special protection under national and EU law, on the island since 2003. The organisation pointed out ‘The lack of conservation objectives for the site and the lack of an existing visitor management plan or SPA management plan means that there is no pathway for long term Chough conservation through which the proposed development could fit.’

The An Bord Pleanala Inspector, who visited the island twice, showed in two Reports that the developer’s calculations of the impact of visitors which was based on Quessant Island off the Brittany Coast which also hosts chough species ‘cannot be relied on for a number of reasons.’

The ‘pro-rata calculation methodology’ for the visitor numbers allowed by French authorities that led to the Board’s decision to cap the visitor numbers at just 5,000 visitors a month or 60,000 a year ‘misrepresent the foraging area’ with assertions ‘put forward without scientific basis’, leading to the Inspector’s conclusion that ‘it is not possible to rely on the numerical visiting capacity arrived at for Dursey Island’.

The Board’s Inspector twice recommended refusal citing the flaws in the Appropriate Assessment, saying that he was ‘not satisfied beyond reasonable scientific doubt, that adverse effects on the integrity of the Beara Peninsula SPA or the Kenmare River SAC can be excluded.’

However the Board stated that it ‘accepted and adopted the Appropriate Assessment carried out in the Inspectors Report’ but nonetheless approved the proposal in what FIE Director Tony Lowes said was ‘an inexplicable irrationality’. In deciding not to accept the Inspector’s recommendation to refuse permission, the Board Order states it ‘noted and acknowledged the inconsistent methodology and incorrect data but considered that ‘capping the visitor numbers and significant mitigation measures would address these issues’.

Alternatives not assessed
Friends of the Irish Environment, whose offices are on the Beara Peninsula near the development, said that they had found after a visit to the Board’s Dublin offices that their files contained an alternative proposal which was prepared in April 2013 by consultants on behalf of Cork County Council.

The ’Dursey Island and Cable Car Strategic Review’, described by the Council as a ‘feasibility study’, outlines an upgrade of the existing cable car at a then estimated cost of €600,000 instead of the approved proposal which it is now estimated would cost €10 million. This alternative, which would satisfy the urgent need for a replacement of the existing cable car, was never assessed in the 2019 Environmental Impact Assessment as an alternative. ‘combined with the recommended electronic signage at the main road and in Castletownbere and Glengarriff show waiting times, this alternative was never considered

In its appeal against the project, FIE cited the ‘Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape’ from Cork University Press which says ‘Irish tourism now faces a crossroads. It remains confused as to whether the country should aspire to be a cheap mass-market destination, or expensive high-end niche market’.

In its appeal, An Taisce suggested that ‘The model for the future of tourism investment in West Cork should be non-car-based and promote longer stays accommodated in locations to a level commensurate with the capacity of the host environment rather than the high-volume car or bus-based day trip model upon which the subject project is based’.

ENDS

Contact: Friends of the Irish Environment 353 (0)87 2176316 / 353 (0)27 74771
Advisory on original appeal: https://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.org/17721-leading-environment-groups-oppose-7m-dursey-island-mass-tourism-project

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