The government is facing a €1.7 million fine and daily penalties of more than €12,000 for not complying with a European Court of Justice ruling made ten years ago over a wind farm in the west of Ireland.
The European Commission has referred the failure of the state to carry out an environmental impact assessment of the wind farm at Derrybrien, Co Galway, back to the EU’s top court.
The ECJ ruled in 2008 that Ireland failed to fulfil its obligations as an EU member state by not carrying out any assessment of a project that was likely to have significant effects on the environment before planning permission was granted.
“Although the Derrybrien wind farm was constructed already more than 13 years ago, no sufficient impact assessment has been carried out,” a commission spokesman said yesterday.
At the time Derrybrien was the biggest ever wind farm in the Republic and one of the largest in Europe, with 70 turbines. Its construction required the removal of large areas of forest and the extraction of peat up to a depth of 5.5 metres. A landslide in October 2003 in which tonnes of peat were dislodged from an area under development for the project polluted the Owendalulleegh River, killing 50,000 fish and causing lasting damage to spawning beds.
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“The scale of the development and its sensitive moorland, hilltop location means that its operation continues to have an impact locally,” a spokesman for the commission said.
“The site could still benefit from mitigation and remediation measures but these can only be identified after an environmental impact assessment has been done. Ireland must, therefore, ensure that this happens.”
The European Commission said that EU legislation governing such assessments was intended to make sure that developers could adjust projects to minimise negative effects before they happened or to allow authorities to incorporate mitigation measures when they granted planning approval.
Brussels has asked the ECJ to impose a minimum lump sum payment of €1.685 million on Ireland and proposed that the state should face an additional daily fine of €12,264 if it has not fully complied with the 2008 ruling by the time the court makes its decision on the fine.
A government spokesman said that the Irish authorities had been in regular contact with Brussels on the issue and remained absolutely committed to ensuring that an appropriate environmental review took place.
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He added that Ireland had sought the commission’s agreement in principle for an outlined schedule of work on a new national programme for environmental impact assessments but was still awaiting a response.