North Atlantic Skyline - - Photographs from the west of Ireland (Galway, Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Roscommon and even Leitrim)

Dumping Ground

An article in the Western People sums up the local frustration and anger at the prospect of the location of a cluster of 'dirty' industries in North Mayo.

For communities throughout north Mayo, faced with the prospect of their region being transformed into a dumping ground for dirty industries – which, to date, include the Bellanaboy gas terminal, a foul-smelling plant at Geesala to convert sewage into fertilizer and a proposed asbestos conversion plant outside Killala – such allegations fuel existing public skepticism about the impartiality, probity, accountability and independence of the planning process.

While the article questions the probity of the planning process itself, I suspect that the answer is more straightforward, though no less happy. Like the joke about the two people in the forest who encounter an angry bear and make a run for it. "Do you think we can outrun it?", asks the first. "I only have to outrun you", comes the reply. North Mayo has the misfortune of being a sparsely populated area. Which means that there are less people to protest against an incinerator, an asbestos recycling plant or whatever than in other parts of the country.

Posted by Monasette at February 17, 2005 11:01 PM