CAIM statement: Public Inquiry into Sperrins mining application suspended

The public inquiry into the application for a gold mine by Dalradian Gold in the Sperrin Mountains, County Tyrone, was suspended on the 15th January 2025 due to failure to notify the Irish government and lack of proper transboundary consultation. The process to date has been littered with breaches of planning and environmental law including barriers to public participation, and demonstrates the incompetencies of the government departments who are responsible for granting mineral prospecting and mining licences.

The mining site is linked to the catchment area of the River Finn SAC, posing risks to water quality and water ecology along the catchment in Donegal. Members of CAIM from Donegal offered important testimony on the first three days of the inquiry. This exposed the failure of the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) to conduct proper transboundary consultation, as is required under the Espoo Convention and the Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations (NI) 2017.

Although Donegal County Council was approached by the DfI in April 2024 (when the public inquiry had already commenced and when statements of case were already due in May), they highlighted that the consultation process only started in November and was deeply inadequate. Adverts were placed in the Donegal Democrat newspaper that is only circulated in two thirds of Donegal. Furthermore, the advertisement did not include references to the full information of the application (omitting water abstraction and discharge) and Donegal citizens only had until the 6th of January to make written submissions, over the holiday period. Donegal County Council added it to an obscure part of their website.

Submissions were only given to the DfI on Friday 10th January, with the inquiry starting the following Monday 13th January. No government bodies or Ministers of the Republic of Ireland were notified by the DfI which is a legal requirement. The Department for Infrastructure who will make the decision on Dalradian’s main mining application failed in their statutory duties. All of this breaches the Espoo and Aarhus Conventions, which the UK ratified in 1997 and 2005 respectively. Further, the Commission highlighted that the Department broke its own legal requirements under the Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) regulations (NI) 2017.

The Espoo Convention requires States to notify and consult with other States on projects that are likely to have significant adverse environmental impacts across national boundaries. Article 3(1) of the Espoo Convention clearly states that the public in the affected state be informed as early as possible and no later than when the State of origin is informed.

Article 3(8) stipulates that the public that could be affected be informed of and be provided with possibilities for making comments or objections on all the proposed activities. Donegal, as neighbours of Tyrone, note this application will have implications within not only the Foyle basin, but also pose a serious threat to all biodiversity and human health over a wide area.

CAIM rejects language used by the DfI’s legal representative during the inquiry that consulting Donegal or the rest of Ireland might not bring up any new information and therefore the inquiry could continue. Dalradian’s legal team argued we could just decide which topics to be discussed were transboundary issues and start with the others, ignoring legal requirements that transboundary bodies are allowed to comment on the entirety of an application.

We believe that the incompetencies displayed by the DfI, which are part of a long history of failings (not only surrounding this application but with many other environmental injustices across the North of Ireland including Moyboy Dump, Lough Neagh and others) is another reason why this department is not fit to handle an application of this scale and magnitude. Transboundary consultations weren’t considered for fracking applications on the Fermanagh/ Leitrim border despite the impact it would have had on shared waterways, air and land.

The suspension brings more difficulties to the lives of ordinary people who want to participate in this process. Many had booked time off work to be there for the specific dates set and now find themselves without any more annual leave.In addition, groups like Save Our Sperrins have invested considerable time and money to bring expert witnesses from abroad. All of these costs are carried by the ordinary people of the Sperrins and further afield, while the representatives for government and company are being paid to take part.

This issue further demonstrates the importance of an all-Island approach to environmental justice and the transboundary aspects of extractivism on our Island. Nature, the air, rivers, and the land know no borders, pollution knows no borders. CAIM operates on an all-Island basis because the whole Island is targeted and sold to the mining industry. With around 25% of the North of Ireland under licences and 27% of the South, this inquiry is of vital importance in the struggle to stop rampant extractivism across the island of Ireland.

Since the suspension of the inquiry the Department for the Economy has accepted seven new mineral prospecting license applications covering Tyrone, Fermanagh, Derry and Armagh. This demonstrates once again that there is no end to extractive capital’s plans for our island.

We await the new inquiry dates and call on all governmental departments, NGOs and citizens in the South of Ireland to make your voices heard in the upcoming consultation process.

Follow Save our Sperrins on Facebook and Instagram for more updates.

Donate to the crowdfunder for the public inquiry here.

Sign a petition to make the public inquiry more transparent here.

CAIM (Communities against the Injustice of Mining)


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