Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan has been strongly criticised by a group of farmers in west Cork for taking sides with a Bantry-based businessman who is seeking to develop a wind farm in the area.
In a letter dated March 29th last to the council's planners, Ms Coughlan said she wished to "make representations on behalf of Mr Daniel J (Bob) Murnane, Ballybane Windfarms Ltd, Lanadane, Bantry, Co Cork, in relation to difficulties in commencing his project".
The brief letter, sent on Department of Agriculture headed notepaper, said she would be "most grateful if you could examine this case and let me know the up to date position". It gave the planners her kind regards and was signed "Mary" above her name and ministerial title.
The Bantry Concerned Action Group, which has been blocking the erection of a 38kilovolt power line to serve the proposed wind farm, said it was "astonished" to find the letter from Ms Coughlan in the planning file on an application to extend the proposed wind farm.
"We've been sold down the river by our Minister for Agriculture," said Joe Burke, the group's chairman. "She is supposed to be standing up for farmers in Ireland and here we find her making representations on behalf of businessmen."
ESB Networks has warned it would seek €15,000 a day in compensation from obstructionist farmers in the area and that it may seek to have this recovered from farm payments. "The fact that the Minister for Agriculture is on their side has sent shivers down our spines," said action group spokesman Quentin Gargan.
"Farmers throughout the country are demanding that power lines be put underground for valid health and safety reasons, and the Minister should either support them in their quest or have the decency to stay out of the debate."
More than 300 farmers from as far away as Donegal and Wexford took part in a rally in Bantry last Friday week in support of the 20 local farmers who have been blocking ESB Networks from erecting pylons to support the 38kv power line over a distance of 14km (9 miles).
The ESB sought a further set of injunctions against five local farmers, but when the case came before the High Court last Friday Mr Justice Frank Clarke refused to grant orders against two of them - John Keane and Mary Keane - after finding they were not posing an obstruction.
Referring to the remaining three, the judge said there were planning issues to be dealt with before he could grant injunctions against them and he gave the action group until today to issue proceedings regarding these issues. The group was last night considering its options.
An affidavit in earlier proceedings on behalf of Ballybane Windfarms Ltd referred to an agreement it made with four landowners in Colomane to bury the power line across their lands - even though the terms of the planning permission specify that it was to be laid overground.
The action group said Friday's court ruling did not deal with any substantive issue, including the ESB's "extraordinary powers", and obligation placed on it by the Commission for Electricity Regulation (CER) to provide a grid connection at "least cost" to wind farm developers, which inevitably means going overground.
The group points out that Ireland is unique in Europe in having only 1.3 per cent of its power lines underground. According to an EU survey in 2003, the Netherlands had 100 per cent of such lines buried, Belgium 85 per cent, Britain 81 per cent, Germany 60 per cent and Denmark 59 per cent.
A spokesman for the Minister for Agriculture said that representations had originally been made to her predecessor, Joe Walsh, who was a TD for the area, which is part of the Cork South West constituency.
She had passed similar representations on to Cork County Council "in the normal way".
