Hearing opens into gas plant proposals

AMID growing concerns about delays in moving ahead with plans for a natural gas-fired power plant at Tarbert, Co Kerry, a two-day oral planning hearing into the project begins tomorrow.

Spanish energy giant Endesa is proposing to provide a 450 MW plant at the former ESB generating station, close to the Shannon Estuary village.

The An Bord Pleanála hearing is to take place tomorrow and Wednesday in the Listowel Arms Hotel.

Local authorities in Kerry, Limerick and Clare have been invited to make submissions to the hearing along with An Taisce, the Heritage Council, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the regional fisheries board and government departments.

Environment Minister John Gormley, meanwhile, has said he expects to make a decision shortly on application for a foreshore licence to service the gas terminal from the sea.

However, the local Safety Before LNG (liquid natural gas) Group, which has been strongly opposing the project, said a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) must be carried out before the licence is issued.

Group spokesman Johnny McElligott said that, following the EU Commission’s interim findings into the project, it will be “next to impossible” for Mr Gormley to issue a licence without the proper assessments, as required under EU directives.

As a result of his group’s petition to the European Parliament, the EU Petitions Committee had ruled, last January, that an SEA should have been undertaken because more than 10,000 people were affected by the project.

He said the EU had accepted that gas tankers posed a danger on both the estuary waters and adjoining coastline.

Endesa, meanwhile, proposes to replace the old ESB power plant at Tarbert, built in the late 1960s, with a smaller, more environmentally-friendly natural gas-powered plant.

Upwards of 500 jobs are expected to be created at peak of construction.

The north Kerry area is one of the country’s unemployment blackspots.

The €500 million plan for the area has been welcomed by an overwhelming majority of politicians, community organisations and statutory bodies, including Kerry County Council.

The power plant will be supplied with gas from an LNG import terminal, also on the estuary near Tarbert on land mainly owned by Shannon Development.

As the Endesa proposal come under strategic infrastructure, it does not have to come before the county council for planning approval and has being fast-tracked to An Bord Pleanála.

Two separate oral hearings have already been held – one into the terminal and the other into a proposal for a 26km pipeline to link the terminal to the national gas grid network at Foynes. Both were approved.