A community of Salesian nuns will join a residents' group in the High Court next week in seeking to compel the Minister for Justice to release information on a proposed explosives factory for west Clare.
Separate applications are being brought by the Salesian community at Cahercon, Kildysart, and Cairde Cill an Disirt Teo seeking court orders for information which is classed as security sensitive by the minister.
The plan by Mr Paddy Whelan, a Clare-based businessman with quarry and civil engineering interests, to build the £5 million plant has been upheld by a lengthy planning process.
Clare County Council granted permission for the Shannon Explosives Ltd facility, which would employ 35 people, last December but, following appeals, An Bord Pleanβla has deferred indefinitely its decision on the application.
Separately, under the 1875 Explosives Act, the local authority has to consider giving assent to the draft licence granted by the Department of Justice after a public hearing. That hearing was adjourned in May because the two opposition groups claimed they needed full information.
Mr Jim Sexton, a Limerick solicitor representing the Salesian community, said his clients were making a distinction between safety and health risk information and security information being held by the Department. "They take issue with us on what is covered by the blanket of 'security'."
He agreed there was an issue of a possible threat to the security of the State but he was seeking information on health and safety before the resumption of a public hearing on the proposed factory.
"The purpose of the hearing is to give the public information on what is going on, to allow them to put forward their views."
Last May, Mr Michael Nolan, solicitor for the residents' group, said the public hearing was a nonsense if the information could not be made available.
Mr Whelan, however, said neither the Government Inspector of Explosives nor the Health and Safety Authority officer present on the day were questioned. The security-sensitive information referred to the positioning of closed circuit cameras at entrances, and security systems. "The general plan is on the council file," he said.
He claimed that opposition to his plan was coming from "a very small number of people" who were unrepresentative. "The general public in Kildysart have no objection to this facility. In fact, they would be delighted to see it in production."
Mr Whelan was surprised the nuns were challenging the application, given that they are leaving the area. After 40 years, the community is moving and the convent and 200-acre grounds, a former demesne, are for sale. Part of the lands, which are zoned agricultural, come within a 670-metre exclusion zone around the facility. The community declined to comment yesterday.
Meanwhile, Mr Terence Corry, chairman of the residents-based opposition group, said there was a lot of local anger at the 35-year lease granted to Mr Whelan by the council for use of the pier at Cahercon for £500 a year. "We are saying the pier should be restored to the community."
Situated on the Shannon Estuary, Kildysart has tourism potential, the group believes, and the plant would be located in a visually vulnerable area.
Mr Whelan said the Cahercon area was industrially zoned and there was a marine facility already in Kildysart. "They have a pier for yachts and small boats in a safe area." He said he had a track record of creating employment in the area through his previous tug operation business and the new factory would create 35 jobs.
The only explosives manufacturing plant in the State is the CRH-controlled Irish Industrial Explosives (IIE) plant in Enfield, Co Meath. Restrictions on importing explosives make buying from abroad uneconomical. Mr Whelan employs 250 people in his companies which have a combined turnover of £32 million. He said the road-building programme under the National Development Plan would require large amounts of commercial explosives.