A quarry with no planning permission has been given a Gaeltacht grant of nearly €70,000 despite the fact it is located outside the Gaeltacht area. Liam Reid reports.
M&M Caireal Teo, near Moycullen in Co Galway, received funding of £52,348 (€66,482) in 1998 from Údarás na Gaeltachta after the company incorrectly gave the quarry's address as being in a townland qualifying for Gaeltacht funding.
The quarry is actually in a neighbouring townland, Ballinahaille, which is outside the Gaeltacht. Údarás has said it did not intend to pursue the repayment of the grant aid because the company had made an "understandable and innocuous" error on the address in its grant aid application. The grant was used for a five-year lease of a stone crushing machine.
Known as Welby's Quarry, it was found by Bord Pleanála in 2002 to require planning permission, overturning a previous ruling by the county council that it did not require any planning permission.
In a formal legal warning to the Government in July, the European Commission claimed the quarry, among others, was in breach of European law as it was allowed to undergo major development without being required to carry out an environmental impact assessment, as required under legislation.
Mr Pádraig Ó hAoláin of Údarás na Gaeltachta acknowledged the quarry was outside the Gaeltacht. He said Údarás had reviewed the issue of the location of the quarry, following a complaint and did consider trying to obtain a repayment of the grant aid. However there was "no evidence that a deliberate effort had been made to mislead us. The mistake was understandable and innocuous in the context of the terrain involved," he said.
"The legal costs of endeavouring to achieve repayment or to implement a revocation order in relation to the repayment of the grants could not, in the particular circumstances, be justified," he said.
In relation to the questions surrounding its planning legality, Mr Ó hAoláin said it was an aspect, but not one that directly concerned it as Galway County Council, the legal planning authority in question, had a specific view in relation to the quarry.
Welby's Quarry is one of a number of quarries around the country which have attempted to claim that they are planning exempt, as there was an existing quarry on the site since before 1963. However in 2002, following a review by An Bórd Pleanála, requested by local residents, the board found there had been a major intensification of quarrying on the site, and it therefore required planning permission.
As a result Galway County Council has taken enforcement proceedings against the quarry, which are now the subject of a judicial review, taken by M&M Caireal Teo, before the High Court.
The county council has been a major customer of Welby's Quarry, and stone from the site was used for road upgrading works in the Galway region.
The co-owner of the quarry, Mr Michael Welby, refused to make any comment.