Reply from The Democracy Commission (Ireland)
(April 6th 2004)
|
From:
William Finnerty
To:
Kilconnell Anti-Dump Group Secretary (Annette Gilchrist) ;
New Inn Anti-Dump Chairman (Vincent Costello) ;
Tara / Skreen Group ;
New Inn AntiDump Internet Group ;
Nature Ireland ;
Kilconnell Anti-Dump Internet Group ;
Green Party Ireland (Yahoo Group) ;
CelticParty(Yahoo) ;
East Galway Green Party (Siobhan Nevin)
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 8:00 PM
Subject: Reply from The Democracy Commission >>> re
heritage
sites, new roads, rubbish dumps, bribery, police,
politicians, etc.
Sent: Tuesday, April
06, 2004 10:33 AM
Subject: RE: Submission from the Kilconnell / New Inn area of
east County Galway
Thank you for this submission. We are very happy to receive it. I will pass it to the Commissioners for their consideration and we will be in touch with you again in due course.
Eithne MacManus ++++++++++++ -----Original
Message----- Dear Sir or Madam, Thank you for the opportunity you have provided for people to send in submissions to your organisation (which I have seen at your web site http://www.democracycommission.ie/ ). Please find below a copy of an e-mail (Sent: Monday, April 05, 2004 9:35 AM) to several Galway / Connacht politicians, and to a number of media outlets in the Republic of Ireland. The e-mail reproduced below relates indirectly to "democratic" type difficulties connected with a planned superdump (in the Kilconnell area of East Galway) which may soon be located near my home. It is one of two planned superdumps for my area, one in Kilconnell, and one in New Inn (where my home is located) which the people of my local community are having THRUST upon them (by unelected Local Government officials, and by Central Government): quite regardless of whether we like it or not. Though the impact on our lives should (in my view) be obvious to all responsible for these ongoing superdump plans, we (i.e. the local people) have never been given ANY chance to participate in the decision making process to locate these two huge rubbish dumps in our area: in spite of the Aarhus Convention Agreement which both the European Community, and the Republic of Ireland signed in 1998: and, which "came into force" on October 30th 2001. As far as I know, the Aarhus Convention Agreement does not (at the present time) even feature in ANY of the election manifestos now being used by the various political parties in the Republic of Ireland during the run-up to the June 11th 2004 Elections. (For anybody reading this who wishes to find some of the very basic information on the Aarhus Convention Agreement, please click on the following Internet address: http://www.finnachta.com/TheAarhusConvention.htm .) In so far as I can establish, there is no other rural community in the whole of Ireland that has to cope with the burden of having two superdumps located within a few miles of each other (across the fields). I note that The Democracy Commission is an Independent body set up to review the existing opportunities for citizens to participate in the making of decisions that affect their lives, understand the reasons for disengagement by sections of Irish society from the current political processes, and identify options for new forms of participation, representation and political organisation. Allowing for the contents of the paragraph immediately above, it would be much appreciated if your organisation could give some careful consideration to the matters referred to in the e-mail to the media and politicians reproduced below - which is just one of many I have sent (in the course of the past six years or so) representing the local environmental problems in my particular area. The problems in question include several difficulties relating to heritage protection matters - which in large part arise from the fact that the Esker Riada ridge runs right through the middle of the neighbouring parishes of "New Inn & Bullaun" and "Kilconnell". As far as I know, the Esker Riada is by far the most important of the "Five Great Roads of Ancient Ireland"; and, it has a human history which dates back almost to the time it was formed at the end of the last Ice Age in Europe (i.e. sometime around 8,000 B.C.). Many of the several different types of heritage sites the people in question built throughout this very long period can still be found in the New Inn / Kilconnell area. So much so, that the local area could well (in my view) be something of a "world class" archaeological landscape: with, among other things, a huge potential for tourism that could be of enormous benefit to the local people - and to their descendants for many generations to come. Among the many important heritage items located in the New Inn / Kilconnell area is the world famous Turoe Stone: widely regarded by a growing number of people as the best and most important piece of Iron Age Celtic stone-art in the world. (Further information on the Turoe stone can be found at: http://homepage.eircom.net/~williamfinnerty/protest/nov21_stone.htm ) Later today I plan to send a signed copy of this letter to you through the post. It would be much appreciated if you could let me have a written acknowledgement of receipt for this letter within the coming 14 days (addressed to the postal address provided below please).
Finally, I have
noticed in the "Terms of Reference" page of your web site (under Item 1)
that your organisation has a special interest in people under 25. With
this in mind, I believe it may be of interest to you to consider the views
on democracy recently expressed in a local newspaper by a 20 year old law
student (Ms Ann Marie Kelly) who is a member of my local community. They
can be seen by clicking on the following Internet link: Yours sincerely, Mr William Finnerty
"St Albans"
++++++++++++ Some days after sending the letter below (dated March 31st 2004) to Commissioner Conroy, I received newspaper material which strongly suggests Mr George Redmond received a number of bribes from a very senior executive of National Toll Roads: and that it was not just one bribe as I have stated in the e-mail reproduced below. It also seems to be the case that the very senior National Toll Roads executive who provided Mr Redmond with the bribes had a keen interest in landfill sites. Part of the newspaper material (referred to above) reads as follows: "Mr Redmond said he received a cheque for £5,000 after he had shown the National Toll Roads executive some council owned landfill sites for which he was seeking private sector investment". +++++++++++
----- Original Message
----- In a letter to me dated March 9th 2004, Galway T.D. (Member of Parliament) Deputy Padraic McCormack expressed the view that a serious bribe allegation (made in the presence of two witnesses) involving Celtic Waste (and the Chairman of the Kilconnell Anti-Dump Group) should be investigated by the Gardai. To the very best of my knowledge no such Gardai investigation has yet taken place; and, if nothing is done about this fairly soon it appears to me that An Bord Pleanala may make an important decision (regarding a planned superdump very close to where I live) which completely ignores this extremely serious bribery allegation altogether. The bribery matter in question was debated in the Dail (Irish Parliament) on July 1st 2003 by Deputy Trevor Sargent T.D. (Green Party Leader), and Martin Cullen T.D. (Minister for the Environment). The text of the debate in question can be seen at Internet page location: http://www.gov.ie/debates-03/1Jul/Sect4.htm On July 11th 2003, I sent a letter through the registered post to Minister Cullen (which was copied to Prime Minister Ahern T.D.) requesting that the €50,000 bribe allegation and certain other matters be investigated in a responsible manner. In so far as I can judge, it seems to me that Minister Cullen and Prime Minister Ahern are both completely ignoring my written request of July 11th 2003. The text of my letter, and Post Office details of the registered letters I used, can be viewed at: http://www.finnachta.com/CorruptionInvestigationRequest.htm More recently, I pointed out the Celtic Waste (Greenstar) bribery allegation in the text of a written submission I made to An Bord Pleanala dated February 21st 2004. The text of this written submission, together with the Bord Pleanala appeal hearing reference numbers, can be viewed at: http://www.finnachta.com/BordPleanalaAppeal.htm I would like to stress to you that when I later tried to discuss the bribe matter at the An Bord Pleanala oral hearing on March 11th 2004 (in Oranmore, County Galway), I was prevented from doing so by the An Bord Pleanala Inspector (Mr Robert Ryan) - in the presence of dozens of witnesses. I was not given any reason by Mr Ryan for his intervention which I would consider remotely satisfactory. I would also like to point out to you that (in case you do not already know) Celtic Waste is almost entirely owned by National Toll Roads, and that according to reports I have heard from a number of different sources, a certain Mr George Redmond (once a very senior local government official in Dublin I understand) is at present in jail partly because of a large bribe he took from National Toll Roads a few years ago. I further understand that all the details of this matter are to be found in the Tribunal Report associated with Mr Redmond's criminal conviction and imprisonment. General background information relating to the planned Celtic Waste superdump in Kilconnell can be found at the following MSN web site: http://groups.msn.com/KilconnellAntiDump/messages.msnw ; and, backup copies of the information in question can be found in the messages section of the Yahoo site located at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheCelticParty/
Later today I plan to
send a signed copy of this letter to you through the registered post.
For your convenience,
and for future reference purposes, I also plan to copy the text of this
letter to the following Internet page location (sometime within the next
48 hours):
http://www.finnachta.com/PoliceLetter31March2004.htm
It would be much
appreciated if you could let me have a written acknowledgement of
receipt for this letter within the coming 14 days (addressed to the
postal address provided below please).
Yours sincerely,
Mr William Finnerty
"St Albans"
New Inn
Ballinasloe
County Galway.
+++++++++++++
For future
reference purposes a copy of this e-mail will also be placed at:
+++++++++++++
|
||
|
Some interesting background information relating to ownership of
GOOGLE SEARCH LISTINGS
ON ABOVE 3 COMPANIES:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=National+Toll+Roads+Cement+Roadstone+Holdings&spell=1 http://www.google.com/search?q=Cement+Roadstone+Holdings&btnG=Google+Search http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=National+Toll+Roads+Ireland&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?q=Celtic+Waste+Greenstar&btnG=Google+Search |
||
|
|||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
PAGE HISTORY: |
Home Page >>> www.finnachta.com <<< Home Page