Ridiculous mullagh mast decision oreilly

Seamus Enright

The inclusion of a controversial telecommunications mast at Mullagh Garda Station under exempted development in planning laws is “giving the fingers” to rural Ireland.

So said Fianna Fáil councillor Shane P O’Reilly at Monday’s meeting of Cavan County Council following a ruling by An Bord Pleanála that the development is exempt.

The report by the planning appeals board was made available to members last Friday, July 10. It prompted the Mullagh councillor to label the outcome as “disgusting and utterly ridiculous”.

He told The Anglo-Celt afterwards: “This is far from over. This decision is not the end. We will continue to fight this until we have exhausted all avenues, and until the people behind it see sense.”

Cavan County Council referred the matter to the bord for consideration after concern was raised over whether the mast, attached to Mullagh Garda Station, in its current state of structure, needed planning permission.

The application was lodged in February of this year, and towards the end of last Monday, the Bord decided that, while the mast “is a development”, it is exempted as it was carried out on behalf of the State Authority within the scope of Article 86(1)(a)(i) of the Planning and Development Regulations 2001.

The Bord inspector’s reports were posted on the authority’s wesbite, and made available to Cavan County Council last Friday.

“This is a sad day for rural Ireland,” Cllr O’Reilly opined, adding that it was “disgraceful how a State agency can ride roughshod over the concerns of the people the village of Mullagh”.

Supported by Fine Gael councillors Paddy O’Reilly and Paddy Smith, he expressed his outrage and demanded that a proposal to instigate an oral hearing to examine local concerns be established.

Cavan County Council currently has 28 days in which to examine the contents of the report. The local authority acceded to a request by Cllr O’Reilly to have the authority’s legal department study the ruling also.

Speaking to the Celt yesterday morning, Cllr O’Reilly reiterated his stance that the community of Mullagh would continue to stand against the development.
While stating that no one locally could deny the purposes of the mast to better enable emergency service communications, “the eyesore”, that the mast has now become, not to mention its proximity to local dwellings.

“As Cllr Paddy O’Reilly said himself, there are any number of places that mast could be put. But as it stands, it sticks out like a sore thumb at the bottom of the village. I wouldn’t mind but we had a fight to keep the station. Since the mast was put there, it has increased in size three times. This whole thing, as it has dragged on, has caused huge heartache for people in the locality. But we do not and will not accept the outcome of this report,” he said.