Challenge to permission for Danny Healy Rae firm

An environmental campaigner has brought a legal challenge to a decision to allow a company owned by Independent TD Danny Healy-Rae raise the level of a field in Co Kerry.

Peter Sweetman has sought judicial review of Kerry County Council's decision of June 14th last to grant permission to Healy Rae Plant Hire Limited to raise the field at Kilgarvan in order to improve its agricultural output.

Mr Sweetman says the developer obtained permission to fill in the field with construction and demolition waste on a 1.8 hectare field which is poorly drained and underlain by peaty soils.

The company intends to place more than 50,000 tonnes of inert waste material directly on the surface of the existing vegetation and then to place grass seed on top of the levelled waste material, he says.

In his statement grounding the application, he says it is not proposed by the developer to import topsoil for the improvement of the land.

Mr Sweetman claims the council should not have granted permission and had failed to consider whether the development needed a waste licence enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The council also failed to consider any environmental impact from the proposed development including leachate, gas, or the placement of water, he claims.

The field is also 1.5km from Killarney National Park Special Protection Area (SPA) and other SPAs that contain freshwater pearl mussels, lesser horseshoe bats, the marsh fritillary butterfly, otters and species of protected fish, he says.

The planning permission, he claims, was granted in material contravention of the Kerry Development Plan without an Environmental Assessment (EIA) or an Appropriate Assessment (AA) being carried out. Numerous objectives of the development plan have been disregarded or disapplied Mr Sweetman adds.

In his action, Mr Sweetman seeks orders quashing the permission. He aso seeks several declarations including that the State has failed to transpose various EU directives on the conservations of natural habitats and assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment.

At the High Court on Monday, Mr Justice Seamus Noonan granted lawyers for Mr Sweetman permission, on an ex parte basis (one side only represented), to bring his action against the council and the State.

Healy Rae Plant Hire Ltd is a notice party to the action.

The judge returned the matter to November.