Coillte Teoranta, the State forestry company, has suffered a significant setback to plans to sell off land for development following the refusal of An Bord Pleanála for a scheme in Co Galway.
Along with the Monivea Community Development Co-op, Coillte had sought permission for 120 retirement homes, a community care centre, a nursing home, an 80-bedroom hotel and leisure centre at Monivea Demesne, near Athenry.
An Taisce and the Monivea Demesne Preservation Society appealed against Galway County Council's decision to grant permission subject to conditions and have warmly welcomed An Bord Pleanála's decision to overturn it.
But Mr Gerry Egan, Coillte's company secretary, said it was a shame because it was a community-led development which had majority support.
He said a huge amount of work went into developing it and taking it through the planning process.
In its ruling, the appeals board said the proposed development would seriously injure the character and amenities of the village.
It would also impact adversely on Monivea Demesne and woodland, an existing public amenity area.
It would also "constitute over-development of these lands, would negatively affect the relationship between the village and Monivea Demesne and would, therefore, be contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area".
An Taisce noted that the site forms part of the woodland area of Monivea Demesne, which was bequeathed to the nation by Miss Kathleen ffrench in 1938, with a provision for the protection of the woodlands as a public amenity.
Describing the proposed development as "commercial", a spokesman for An Taisce said An Bord Pleanála's refusal "exposes Coillte's environmental record and policy of property disposal and accommodation of development in woodland areas".
Mr Martin Lowery, Coillte's chief executive, said in a newspaper interview last October that it had a policy to seek planning permission for sites and sell them on to developers.
"At any one time, we may have 40 planning applications in progress," he said.
According to An Taisce, the planning refusal for Monivea Demesne was "an indictment of Coillte's role and competence in protecting amenity forestry and woodland" and called into question its Forest Stewardship Council environmental management certification.
Mr Tony Lowes, founder of Friends of the Irish Environment, said the basic problem was that the 1988 Forestry Act had transferred publicly-owned woodland to Coillte and given the company a "primarily commercial remit" in managing it.
Mr Egan said Coillte consults extensively with local communities in areas where development proposals are being considered, and the Monivea scheme was a classic example of that.
He said every forestry company in the world bought and sold land as part of its normal business activities. In any one year, Coillte might dispose of about 1,000 acres of forestry land, but this was in the context of a holding of more than a million acres.
According to Mr Egan, annual disposals would normally include "one exceptionally large one", such as the sale to Shell of land for its gas terminal in north-west Mayo, as well as a number of very small areas involving outlying properties of no strategic value.
