Don’t blame slug for road plan delay

YOUR report of last week’s meeting of Kerry County Council treated us to a re-run of the ‘environmentalist and the snail’ story (Snail blamed for delays to Cork-Kerry road plan, June 22). We were told a judicial review on behalf of the snail by “environmentalists” was holding up the road.

The judicial review that is currently delaying the road has been taken by residents near Carrigaphooca Castle. The grounds are an error in law relating to the assessment of the impact, the failure of the OPW (who own the castle on our behalf) to make a submission, and rights of way. It has nothing to do with the protected Kerry slug.

A survey was finally triggered at the planning stage by environmentalists’ whistle blowing in Brussels. The survey revealed that this area of the woodland was as worthy of protection as the other side of the road, which was designated as an SAC under the Habitats Directive in the late 1990’s.

If the boundaries had been done on scientific grounds from the outset, the snail issue would never have arisen, because the woodland and gorge where it lived would have been protected and the route would have avoided the area from the outset. Ironically, neither the Kerry slug nor the castle need have caused any delay to the Macroom bypass, which is rightly at the heart of the intense local pressure to build this road. The castle is six kilometres from Macroom and the snail more than twice that. The Macroom bypass is actually part of the planned Cork-Killarney dual carriageway. If the council had settled for a bypass alone it could have been build years ago. In fact, the appeals board inspector recommended against the road widening to the west because the volume of traffic drops so drastically after Macroom.

The Kerry slug can be easily identified because it is the only slug that curls into a ball when poked. One can hardly blame it, given the angry councillors roaming the countryside.

Tony Lowes

Friends of the Irish Environment

Eyeries

Co Cork