Judicial review sought on proposed LNG plant in Kerry
The environmental organisation contends there are "critical failures" in the Environmental Impact Statement submitted by the developer, Shannon LNG.
An Bord Pleanála gave permission for the 600 megawatt capacity power plant and an associated battery energy storage system in March.
The proposed development would be constructed on a 630 acre site near Tarbert in Co. Kerry.
The planning board said the facility was in line with climate legislation.
However, FIE says an environmental assessment significantly underestimated greenhouse gas emissions because "key calculation parameters" were not clearly identified.
It says emissions could be three times worse than those from a coal-fired power station and would be in breach of the State's climate mitigation targets.
The matter will be back before the courts later this month.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RTÉ News
40 minutes ago
- RTÉ News
The teachers who go beyond the extra mile for their students
Analysis: As Irish teachers prepare to go back to work, many of their peers worldwide continue to work in unfamiliar, challenging and dangerous settings Teachers in this part of the world are marking the countdown to a new year. Elsewhere in the world though, our teaching colleagues are working to different rhythms and in more unfamiliar and challenging settings. As we open our new planners, weigh up the merits of our timetables, look forward to meeting our students and brace ourselves for what is an all-consuming and demanding annual rhythm, this is a salute to those of us who go the extra mile for students. We know that teachers work in prisons, hospitals and refugee camps. By contrast, they are also work in international schools, on film sets and as jet-setting tutors to rich families. They have also taught in caves and mountain-tops with hazardous ascents and in far-flung valleys. Digital learning and distance education notwithstanding, teachers are still physically present and working in remote geographical locations. Some of these are accessible only by boat or plane and occasionally require an arduous journey across challenging terrain for pupils and staff alike. Solar-powered boat schools in Bangladesh allow children affected by climate change-induced flooding to continue their education, despite environmental disruption. The floating schools dock at various locations until all the charges are aboard and seated in their internet-equipped classrooms. Some of the boats even contain mini-playgrounds, allowing the kids to play as well as learn. Outside of the traditional classroom, other teachers educate underprivileged students on railway platforms, in India, for example, or as asylum-seeking teachers themselves, in border-located initiatives, like the Mexican 'Sidewalk School '. This school empowers children of migrant families living in 'tent cities' and seeking resettlement in the US to navigate their new environment with improved English-language and social skills. Financial considerations and the technological developments of recent decades have led to the contemporary dominance of online distance learning. The enduring global model of the rural one-teacher school is virtually obsolete. Deborah Mueller is a language teacher in Australia with a 35-year career in distance learning. From RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime, why are some schools facing teacher shortages this September? "Back in the day, 25 or 30 years ago, we used to send students work by mail and they'd record their speaking practice on a cassette and then we'd give feedback on the same cassette and send it back. Then we got telephones, so were able to have phone lessons. Then came video-conferencing, then Zoom, now Teams. "I have flown to visit my students in their country towns several times since the course was introduced at my school, but it's quite expensive (plane flights, hire car, hotel overnight, food allowance), so it no longer happens." Some teaching locations, including far-flung rural sites in the Australian outback, or the boarding schools of the Sámi in the far north of Sweden and refugee camps, amongst others, require a deliberate, critical, pedagogical approach. The students' physical and social environment is centred in a culturally-responsive way. Indigenous teachers and learners, for instance, value the inclusion of outdoor learning, and of storytelling. From ABC Australia, Gazan children are learning in makeshift classrooms after their schools were destroyed in Israeli attacks These are techniques which modify a universalizing curriculum through acknowledgement of local cultural and seasonal practices and attitudes to the surrounding natural environment. Irish educators are also keen to implement this kind of education. Increasingly, governments and NGOs are endeavouring to recruit and better qualify indigenous and local teachers, whose linguistic ability and cultural insight better place them to engage with the pupils and locations in which they work. But this policy approach runs parallel to a powerfully ascendant managerialist approach to education worldwide. The relative geographic isolation in which some of the teachers work, though, can also afford them a liberating autonomy from the relatively inflexible, performance-driven orientation of more 'mainstream' schools and allow them to draw on their own experience and judgement to include and validate local forms of knowledge. Teachers in refugee camps in Sudan, Kenya, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza and elsewhere are often themselves displaced and may face daily threats of violence. Accessing school buildings, if they haven't been destroyed, can involve a perilous journey. Online education is not always possible either, as electricity, internet and device supply may be limited. UNRWA's 450 Temporary Learning Spaces in Gaza have delivered education and offered recreational activities to thousands of Gazan children, in addition to its provision of psychosocial support to traumatised adults and children. In something of a new horizons flex, some teachers have even gone extra-terrestrial, including those former teachers re-trained as astronaut-educators. Other teachers are specialising as STEM space educators, refining their knowledge through sub-orbital flights and the study of astronautics.
Irish Examiner
5 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Waterford neighbours appeal against Dyson's planned helipad
Waterford neighbours of billionaire James Dyson have appealed against his plans to build a helipad on his estate. An appeal has been lodged against a decision that permitted the inventor, known for founding the Dyson company, which sells bagless vacuum cleaners among other items, to construct a helicopter landing zone at his expansive Ballynatray House estate near the River Blackwater, near the Cork-Waterford border. The original planning application was submitted by estate manager Christopher Nicholson. Those who submitted proposals against the construction during the initial planning process expressed concern that 'up to 50 helicopter landings a year' would have an adverse affect to the wildlife on the river and the local population, saying the Blackwater is an unspoiled haven', which is 'something that should be preserved and cherished' and not 'spoiled with the weekly noise of a helicopter'. One objector said a helicopter could be heard from miles around and would have a 'disturbing influence' on the wildlife in the area, described as being 'a sanctuary due to the lack of interference from humans'. A neighbour wrote to the Council: 'It is difficult in today's world to find such areas and I feel strongly that for the sake of someone's convenience, an area of natural beauty and importance will be subjected to unnecessary disturbance.' The council was told that the site is an important nesting site for herons, egrets, cormorants and birds of prey such as sparrowhawks, owls and buzzards. Other birds sighted include sea eagle, osprey and red kite. The shoreline is inhabited by curlew, ducks and whooper swans, the submitter wrote, along with red squirrels, otters, badgers, foxes, fallow deer and stoats. An objection to the plan said that the helicopter would fundamentally alter the natural soundscape and peaceful aural environment of the area, 'replacing birdsong and the sounds of nature with the intrusive noise of rotor blades'. A different objection to the original planning submission described the Blackwater River and its surrounds as a 'sensitive area continually under attack' from housing, building, boats, jet-skis 'and now helicopters'. He said there were more than a dozen other houses in the area that could accommodate a helipad, adding: 'I am sure the applicant wouldn't be happy if another 12 helicopters flew over Ballynatray each day.' Waterford Council granted permission for the helipad to be built under certain conditions. However, neighbours have filed an appeal with the Irish planning authority An Coimisiun Pleanala and a decision is due by November 26.
Irish Times
11 hours ago
- Irish Times
Small fraction of applicants to Defective Concrete Block Scheme have had their homes fixed
Just 7 per cent of applicants to the Defective Concrete Block Scheme have had their homes remediated in the five years since the scheme opened, new records show. Some 220 homeowners have had their remediation works completed under the scheme out of a total of 2,870 applications since it opened in June 2020, according to figures released by the Department of Housing up to the end of July 2025 show. A further 977 applicants have issued notices to commence work. The Defective Concrete Block grant scheme helps homeowners to repair or rebuild their homes where significant damage has been caused by the presence of pyrite or mica in the blocks used to build it. READ MORE These minerals cause cracks and other defects to appear in the homes which have been built with blocks from certain quarries. The scheme was originally opened in June 2020 and covered counties Mayo and Donegal , with owners able to claim 90 per cent of a maximum rebuild cost of €247,500. Campaigners argued this left a huge gap in funding the actual cost of rebuilding their homes. Dr Martina Cleary, founder of the Clare Pyrite Action Group and a lecturer at the Technological University of the Shannon, says the new scheme has 'a lot of problems'. Dr Martina Cleary's home under demolition near Crusheen, Co Clare. Photograph: Eamon Ward 'The first problem is you need an awful lot of money to start it,' she says, giving the example of her own home outside Ennis which she has already spent €40,000 on. 'Then the grant itself is short. I have a small bungalow and the grant I got was €187,920. When you take out €30,000 for demolition and €10,000 for engineers, I have somewhere between €145,000 and €150,000 to rebuild my home,' Dr Cleary says. [ Donegal's Titanic: The sinking of a housing estate built on a peat bog Opens in new window ] In June 2023, an enhanced scheme opened for applications with homes in Clare and Limerick now included and the rebuild cost limit pushed up to €462,000. In October 2024, Co Sligo was also added. A total of €163 million has been paid out in grants so far, figures released by the Department of Housing in response to a parliamentary question from Sinn Féin's Eoin Ó'Broin show. These figures, accurate up to the end of June, show that out of the 2,796 applications to the scheme at that stage, 1,334 had met the damage threshold required to qualify for the grant. Some 54 applications were refused or withdrawn, while 27 did not meet the damage threshold. Since applications to the enhanced scheme opened there have been 164 applications in Co Clare, 64 in Co Limerick and three in Co Sligo. 'It will work for people who are wealthy, but it is inaccessible for people who are most at need.' Photograph: Eamon Ward Some 11 applicants have started work in Co Clare, with none on site yet in Limerick or Sligo. Homeowners in these counties say there are several difficulties with getting access to the enhanced scheme. Sinn Féin housing spokesman Mr Ó Broin says the latest figures show 'the defective concrete block scheme is not working for the vast majority of affected homeowners'. Some of the issues he points to are that several properties are being refused or delayed for long periods of time before final grants are awarded. 'Government must go back to the drawing board and introduce an end-to-end scheme run by the Pyrite Resolution Board to ensure 100 per cent redress for all impacted homeowners,' he says. Speaking of her own experience in Clare, Dr Cleary says she spoke to 14 builders and looked at every type of building method, but all quotes came in at between €230,000 and €300,000. While there is light at the end of the tunnel for Dr Cleary, it did not come without significant stress over the last five years since realising her home was crumbling. [ 'I grew up in an apartment in another country. I bought an apartment in Dublin and had to get out after a year' Opens in new window ] 'It consumes your life trying to fix it,' says Dr Martina Cleary. Photograph: Eamon Ward 'It was extremely traumatic, extremely shocking to realise I was in that situation,' she says. 'I remember sitting in the house and I could actually hear the blocks cracking. I could hear the roof rafters moving when it got windy and you're awake at night, terrified,' she says. 'It's just like a train crash in slow motion, it consumes your life trying to fix it.' 'The scheme will work for people that have at least €100,000 to €150,000 to put into a house. It will work for people who are wealthy, but it is inaccessible for people who are most at need,' Dr Cleary says. When asked about the latest figures, the Department of Housing pointed to the fact that 220 homes had been completed and 977 had issued notices to commence work, representing 41 per cent of applications. The Department said in a statement that '2024 was the first full year of the current DCB grant scheme and it is evident from the large number of commencement notices that the scheme is now ramping up'.
