The Minister for Agriculture has been urged not to end the suspension of timber felling at Castle Forbes Estate in County Longford until a full investigation has been undertaken.

The suspension was initiated by the Forest Service on April 5, 2016 after a complaint was lodged by the environmental group Friends of the Irish Environment for General Felling Licences issued in January and February of this year.

In today’s letter, the group alleges that neither of the two licenses granted required that work not take place during the bird nesting season from 1 May to 30 September. read full story / add a comment

The Bord Pleanala Oral Hearing for Indavers 240,000 tonne incinerator application at Ringaskiddy is due to commence in Carrigaline Court on Tuesday next, 19 April at 10.30pm. Previous hearings lasted 3 weeks, and a similar time is expected to be allocated to this hearing. read full story / add a comment

Bord Pleanala have refused a request by CHASE for an extension to the Oral Hearing date for Indavers Ringaskiddy incinerator application and confirmed that the Oral Hearing will start on 19 April at Carrigaline Court Hotel at 10.30am, citing 12 July 2016 as deadline date under Strategic Infrastructure Process.

CHASE wrote to An Bord Pleanala following receipt of registered letters on 31 March/1st April advising of the hearing date, leaving just 12 working days preparation for the hearing. Previous hearings lasted 3 weeks.

Bord Pleanala received over 220 submissions objecting to the proposal, each of which was accompanied by a payment of 50Euro. Objections were made by all 4 TD’s for the South Central area, including Defence Minister Simon Coveney, Fine Fail Party Leader Micheal Martin, Michael McGrath (FF) and newly elected Sinn Fein TD Donnchadh O’Laoghaire. read full story / add a comment

Westmeath Environmental Group is holding a fundraiser night on Thursday the 7th of April 2016 at 8pm in the Annebroke House Hotel, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath. We invite you and would greatly appreciate your support by purchasing ticket/tickets to the Documentary Night on Water Fluoridation. We shall be showing short films from both Irish and International Experts who highlight the health effects and the injustice of such a practice.

Ticket cost €10 or you can purchase Two for €15. Call (085) 778 0021 or contact us via e-mail: weg1@eircom.net and we shall get back to you a.s.a.p. -- limited seats are available so advised to purchase early.

www.weg.ie/fundraiser.html for more details.
read full story / add a comment

The European Ombudsman’s Office is to review its decision to close the file against the Commission’s handling of a complaint over alleged failure to notify consumers of the levels of water-borne toxins trihalomethanes [THMs] linked to cancers in Irish public water supplies.

During the Commission investigation the Irish authorities told the Commission that THMs exceed the WHO/EU permitted parameters in 412,000 of Irish Water’s 1.5m customer base, more than 1,000,000 consumers. THMS are a group of more than 60 chemicals, including chloroform which are disinfectant by products created when water with a high organic matter – such as peaty water or excessive algae – is treated with chlorine. read full story / add a comment

Work is proceeding in Woodburn Forest, near Carrickfergus (NI), to construct a drill site for an exploratory well.
The Stop the Drill campaign opposes the drilling, which will take place 380 m uphill from a major drinking water reservoir serving 130,000 people, arguing that it places drinking water at risk of contamination. The site is owned by NI Water, Northern Ireland’s only water utility, which has given permission for the drilling by Infrastrata to go ahead, on the condition that hydraulic fracturing is not used. read full story / add a comment

The ongoing disaster that is Salmon farming both here in Ireland and around the world continues to demonstrate this industry is doing huge damage to the wild salmon and is overall destructive of the ecosystem. Not only that farmed salmon are regularly dosed in deadly toxic chemicals in a desperate effort to keep the sea lice parasites and disease under control and in every case they don't keep any control and the diseases just get more resistant. Salmon are simply not evolved to live in cages in extremely close proximity to tens of thousands of other salmon.

In this report, a letter from Ireland Against Salmon Farms outlines the most recent major salmon farm escape from a salmon farm off Clare Island, Co. Mayo. read full story / add a comment

Every year at Seed Savers we always acknowledge the coming season by hosting our Seed Share day. This is a big event for us and everyone is invited, if you have any spare seeds bring them along too for everyone to share. It doesn’t matter what types of seeds they are, you may arrive with some spare lettuce seed but end up going home with some rare Emerald Apple Tomato seeds from Russia. read full story / add a comment

Diarmuid McAree, ‘Crann – Trees for Ireland’ Director & former Chief Forestry Inspector with the Forest Service, shall lead the guided walk, which shall include tree identification and forest ecology.
read full story / add a comment

National Maritime College of Ireland (NMCI) students are organising a march tomorrow, Thursday 3 March to protest Indavers plans to build a 240,000 tonne municipal and industrial waste incinerator just 20m from the entrance to the College. read full story / add a comment

The Dutch company Indaver operates an incinerator in Duleek, Co. Meath and have lodged planning permission for another incinerator in Cork Harbour. In light of this the explosion of their plant in Netherlands today has significance for us here.

60 firefighters rushed to control an explosion at Indaver’s flagship Antwerp facility today (26 Feb 2016) in what was described by local fire services as a ‘municipal disaster’ as they shut down the nearby road tunnel and requested residents close doors and windows. read full story / add a comment

SOLID NATIONAL OPPOSITION TO FRACKING.

35% of General Election candidates nationally have committed to supporting legislation to ban fracking. Details of party responses are as follows: read full story / add a comment

The “Sign the Pledge” campaign, coordinated by Fracking Free Network, is a big success. 154 candidates in this year’s General Election have so far personally signed the pledge against fracking! From all parties and from all constituencies, candidates have committed to support legislation that will ban fracking in Ireland. There is no doubt that the issue of fracking is now a national rather than a local issue. Candidates from Cork and Kerry, from Donegal and Dublin, from Galway and Wexford have indicated that they will work to ensure that fracking will never be introduced to Ireland. read full story / add a comment

PRESS RELEASE - Friends of the Irish Environment - 17 Feb 2016 - A campaign in Europe to have Irish Water customers informed of toxic chemicals exceeding the World Health Organisation and European Union safety standards has failed, according to Friends of the Irish Environment.

The environmental lobby group, which specialises in the enforcement of European environmental legislation, has been told by the European Ombudsman that she cannot require the European Commission to force Irish Water to inform consumers on their bill that the water they receive contains levels of trihalomethanes above the EU and WHO permitted levels. read full story / add a comment

Good news – it’s official!

The EPA Research Study on Fracking is now stopped. This study was targeted by the campaign against fracking as research showed the study was compromised – it was being led by companies with huge vested interests in the oil and gas industry. A statement from the Department (DCENR) yesterday (2nd) confirmed that the study has been stopped after its first phase, which included an overall look at regulations and legislation governing fracking. Phase 2, on-the-ground studies in Leitrim and Fermanagh which would have included some drilling, will not proceed and a report of Phase 1 will be published in Q3 of this year. read full story / add a comment

If there was ever a way to discourage recycling it is to charge for it. But there is more to this story. Way back during the Bin Tax campaign it was said that the original plan was to charge for recycling and all along the plan was to send most of the recycling material like paper, cardboard and plastic to feed the huge incinerator then planned for Dublin.

This €600 million incinerator is now being built after it was forced on the people of Dublin by the former chairman of Dublin City Council John Tierney in the most undemocratic and secretive way and completely against all the councillors. This incinerator needs to be fed huge amounts of burnable material to keep it 'profitable'. It was sized for 600,000 tonnes which is more than all waste from Dublin. Tierney of course signed a lucrative deal with the incinerator operators Covanta whereby the council will make up the gap financially if they don't get enough material to feed into the monster. Now the dots have joined up and we can be sure that this announcement to start charging for recycling in July 2016 is very much connected with this since the incinerator will start operating early in 2017.
read full story / add a comment

High Profile foxhunter caught redhanded assaulting two farmers...dramatic video footage exposes bullying and thuggery!

read full story / add a comment

The right to water is one of the 17 sustainable development goals 2030 decided by the United Nations. How does this transfer to a local level here in The Cooley Peninsula? Water is one element in the whole panoply of sustainability. read full story / add a comment

Community groups, Mayo Organic Group, & The Good Life Network, are organizing a follow-on day to discuss techniques & information, from the 2015 Soils Matter conference, held in July, at Claregalway Castle.

Want to find out more about carbon sequestration? How to grow soil? How to minimize work on the land? read full story / add a comment

White uses Christmas to sign off on Corrib gas despite pending judicial review of EPA licence. read full story / add a comment