Badger family’s fate at centre of Pat Kenny’s objection to Dalkey development

The fate of a badger family is at the centre of a fresh planning battle between broadcaster, Pat Kenny and the developers of a 104 bedroom nursing home on a site adjacent to the Kenny home in Dalkey, south Dublin.

In a new objection lodged against the Bartra Capital two-to-five storey nursing home, Kenny claims that the “straightforward commercially driven enterprise cannot justify killing the badgers of Bulloch Harbour”.

Earlier this year, Pat and Kathy Kenny and over 30 other households in Dalkey were successful in opposing a previous application by Bartra for a nursing home on the same site after Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council refused the application on a number of grounds.

Bartra appealed that refusal decision to An Bord Pleanala but within days withdrew the appeal and instead lodged the new application which is currently back before the council.

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As part of preparation in lodging the application, Bartra hired experts to carry out a Ground Penetrating Radar (GDP) survey which determined the scale of an underground badger sett complex.

A Badger Conservation Plan lodged with the application states that once proposed mitigation measures have been implemented for the local badgers, the proposed nursing home “will not have a significant impact on the (badger) sett structure”.

However, the Kennys claim in their objection that “what is proposed by the applicants as mitigation (of the badger sett) will result in extermination”.

They point out that badgers are a protected species and state: “Given that there are no mitigation measures that can protect this sett, we ask that the proposal be turned down on the specific grounds of the wildlife protection measures enshrined in law and in the Bern Convention to which Ireland is a signatory.”

As part of their objection the Kennys state they are in the fortunate position of having an active breeding badger sett “within the grounds of our home” for more than 20 years and “ have been rewarded over the years with the sight of young badger cubs playing”.

The Kennys state that any destruction of the badger sett would be “cruel and unconscionable”.

A decision is due on the application next month.