At the recent preliminary hearings into proposed goldmining in the Sperrins Fermanagh and Omagh District Council were represented Corporately.
Why FODC Councillors refused to serve a stop notice on the international goldmine company, Dalradian, as their licence expired some years ago, wasn't made clear at the event. Had Cllrs done so Dalradian would have been gone already, their compound decommissioned and no public inquiry required.
In a less transparent system in Northern Ireland citizens have come to expect little from politicians and are rarely disappointed. In this instance it's they who will effectively pay thrice for the pleasure of doing the work of politicians on all things goldmining. Once, for an inept public inquiry through their taxes, once when hiring legal firms to counter mining company propaganda and once in shoe leather, campaigning everywhere they can.
Why political representatives refuse to fulfill their duties to protect all that sustains this part of Tyrone is a question only they can answer but as RHI, the poisoning of Lough Neagh and multiple other environmental disasters shows, Councils, Stormont or their representatives cannot be depended on.
From Department Officials exposed as amateurs when asked simple procedural questions, to learning that goldminers are allowed to present their own Environmental Impact Assessments without independent scrutiny, to PSNI Officers hiding behind curtains side stage in a covert manner - the Planning Appeals Commission hearing was a fiasco from the get go.
A reasonable assessment of the preliminary hearings into goldmining would conclude it's the public who need protection from the State and it's political agents, not the other way round.
⏩Ciaran McClean campaigns against the rape of the Sperrins.
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