Mayo Gaeltacht community demand action after Irish speakers given less time to object to wind farm

SIGNAGE for a proposed wind farm development in north Mayo appears to have got lost in translation.

Dates in the Irish version of a planning notice don't correspond with what has been published in the English language.

There's a month's difference in the deadlines for making submissions, with anyone reading the Irish notice given until '10 Mí na Meitheamh' (June 10) to get their observations in, while the English notice carries a July 10 deadline.

An Erris community group has now called on government to intervene after discovering that Irish-speaking residents were given a full calendar month less time to object to the proposed wind farm than their English-speaking neighbours - purely because they read the Irish language version of the planning notices.

Local Councillor Gerry Coyle has also highlighted the matter at a meeting of Mayo County Council.

RWE Renewables Ireland Limited propose constructing the 13-turbine Muingmore Wind Farm overlooking Blacksod Bay, near Geesala.

Photos of the proposal make for 'sombre looking at', Councillor Coyle told the local authority meeting yesterday, 'towering down' on a scenic area.

And he raised his concerns about the public notices for the project, where the Irish signs differ from the English ones.

The Bellacorick area is called a 'red light area', he further commented, with all the red lights on top of the turbines there, and it was time for the Erris region to stand up and say 'enough is enough'.

Separately, Mr. Bakeburg highlighted how the energy company erected their planning notices on May 18. The English notices say the deadline to object is July 10. The Irish notices say 10 Mí na Meitheamh – this Wednesday, June 10.

The newspaper advertisement - 'bilingual, same page, same edition' - says July 10 in English and June 10 in Irish.

He explained that he would be writing to An Coimisiún Pleanála formally requesting them to set aside the whole application.

“In a Category A Gaeltacht - the highest designation this State can give to an Irish speaking area - Irish speakers were given a month less to defend their own homes, their own landscape, and their own community. I find it extraordinary. It is a fundamental injustice and we are treating it as such,” he commented.

Mr. Bakeberg, who sits on the Wild Mayo DEDP steering committee, formally took up the issue on behalf of the Gaeltacht community and has today written to both An Coimisiún Pleanála and to Minister Dara Calleary - the minister with responsibility for Gaeltacht affairs - demanding immediate action.

"This is not a typo on one notice pole in a field," Mr. Bakeberg said. “It appears in multiple publications simultaneously. The same advertisement, in the same newspaper, tells you different things depending on which language you read.”

He added: "The Irish language is not a courtesy in this community. It is the living language of people's daily lives, of their homes, their families, their businesses.

“When a major industrial developer tells you - in your own language - that your right to participate in a planning process expires on a different date than your English-speaking neighbour, that is not just a planning error. That is the State failing to vindicate the rights of its Irish-speaking citizens.”

They were asking for three things, Mr. Bakeberg set out: "First, acknowledge that the notices are defective and the process is invalid. Second, require the developer to start again with correct, compliant, equal notices in both languages. Third, ensure the Gaeltacht community gets the full statutory period - the same as everyone else - to participate in a process that will define the future of this landscape for the next 35 years."