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Showing posts with label Dalradian project. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dalradian project. Show all posts
Enda Craig ⬟ Governments aggressively chase inward investment through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) because it creates jobs, drives technological advancement, and boosts tax revenues.
 
To attract global capital, national and regional authorities offer highly competitive incentives, including tax breaks, streamlined regulatory approvals, and financial grants.

Governments use a variety of aggressive tactics to secure this investment.

Financial Incentives
 
State and national agencies frequently offer direct cash grants, subsidized land, and infrastructure development to lower the upfront capital costs for large corporations.

Tax Relief

Many regions utilize corporate tax exemptions, reduced tariffs, and specialized economic zones (such as enterprise zones or freeports) to guarantee higher long-term profit margins for investors.

Dedicated Investment Agencies
 
Entities such as Select USA act as concierge services for multinational corporations, helping them navigate local labor laws, fast-track building permits, and bypass bureaucratic red tape.
 
Workforce Subsidies

Governments often fund custom training programs or directly subsidize employee wages during a company’s initial launch phase to ensure a ready and skilled local workforce.

While this aggressive pursuit generates substantial economic activity, it can also create "bidding wars" where governments offer increasingly expensive packages of subsidies, occasionally leading to intense international rivalries over major manufacturing or tech projects.

⏩ Enda Craig is a Donegal resident and community activist.

Stormont MLAs And The Part They Played In Enticing Dalradian To Mine The Sperrins

Ciaran McClean ✍ As events unfold in Venezuela with America appropriating it's natural resources to bring the people there prosperity after firstly seeing to USA oil companies, the Omagh based international mining company, Dalradian, must look on with envy as they enter their seventeenth year of financial failure in Northern Ireland.

Dalradian's investors would take the Sperrins Venezuela-style in a heartbeat had they the wherewithal to do so. Unfortunately for them Northern Ireland isn't Venezuela.
 
Going nowhere fast, Dalradian fall between two stools in their quest to enrich themselves at the expense of this little place. The outdated colonial playbook on how to buy your way into a country has proven worthless in the face of well organised local opposition who saw the miners' play from day one.

Secondly, the attempt to industrialise the Sperrins can't meet minimum environmental standards in law. With community activists understanding the planning system better than slothful politicians and inept civil servants, every move to facilitate Dalradian is counter checked. Unlike the last major scandal in Northern Ireland, there are no RHI type off-ramp options to allow the mining proposal to gain traction.

The scales of justice also refuse to tip in Dalradian's favour as protection of the common good, particularly environmental cases, increasingly prevail via the courts. Meanwhile, citizens see the Northern Ireland Executive support for (FDI) Foreign Direct Investment, at any cost, exposed as an exercise which trades their health and wellbeing to financially benefit privately operated businesses. They will not countenance that type of deal for the Sperrins.

In 2026 goldmining licences are expiring, environmental surveys outdated, legal obligations unfulfilled, even Dalradians camp in the Sperrins must be dismantled and returned to a green field site in the next short while. 

All of the above points to a harsh reality for anyone foolish enough to buy into the fairy tale about digging up untold riches in the Sperrins. The question now is not, if the goldminers leave Northern Ireland, but when? Having relocated from South America to Northern Ireland some years ago believing political circumstances here looked favourable to assist their scheme, Dalradian would be well advised to avoid returning to that region. Regardless of who wears them, American jackboots will be resisted in Venezuela, Northern Ireland or anywhere else they try and impose themselves.

⏩Ciaran McClean campaigns against the rape of the Sperrins.

Resisting Gold Diggers In Sperrins

Catherine McGinty ✏ Foyle pollution: Citizen rights to voice concerns hampered by North - South ‘precise, legally defined, mutually agreed international boundary’

An apparently minor omission by the North’s Department for Infrastructure regarding Dalradian’s proposed goldmine project in County Tyrone’s Sperrin Mountains could trigger a constitutional crisis.

That is the view of seasoned environmental activist, Enda Craig, chairperson of Donegal’s Community for a Clean Estuary (CFCE) campaign.

He explained:

There is no precise, legally defined, mutually agreed international boundary between the Republic of Ireland and the North.
Essentially, this means people living in Donegal may be excluded from the ongoing Transboundary Public Consultation (TPC) on Dalradian’s proposed gold mine.
They will therefore be unable to express their concerns, primarily that pollutants used in the gold mining process will enter the River Foyle and Lough Foyle.

The legal requirement for a TPC abruptly halted the Planning Appeals Commission public inquiry into the proposed goldmine at Curraghinalt near Greencastle, on January 15 - two days after it opened in the Strule Arts Centre in Omagh.

Inquiry chairperson, Jacqueline McParland, was informed the Department of Infrastructure, headed by then Minister John O’Dowd (Sinn Féin), had failed to consult the relevant Irish authorities on the transboundary implications of the proposal.

Responding to a question from Labour party leader, Ivana Bacik TD, in Dáil Éireann on February 11, Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, James Browne, confirmed the statutory responsibility for transboundary consultation was enshrined in the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context - the Espoo Convention for short - to which Ireland and Britain are both signatories.

Espoo is a United Nations Economic Commission for Europe treaty legally obliging signatories to assess the environmental impact of certain activities at an early stage of planning, and to notify and consult each other on projects likely to have a significant adverse transboundary impact.

Subsequently notified by the Department of Infrastructure, the Dublin Government began a TPC on Dalradian’s proposed goldmine project. Led by Donegal County Council, the TCP opened on February 26 and closes on April 23; anyone in Ireland can make a submission.

Mr Craig, who keeps a weather eye on any developments which might have a detrimental impact on the Foyle, set about compiling a submission on behalf of CFCE, based in Moville on the Lough Foyle shore of the Inishowen peninsula. He said:

That was when, unbelievably, I discovered no international boundary exists between the two regions!

I know because I consulted the official map where it can be seen there is no international boundary line whatsoever in relation to any part of Lough Foyle - especially between Muff and Greencastle on the County Donegal coastline. The boundary indicator stops at Muff.

Map showing the watercourse from the proposed site of the Dalradian gold mine in
County Tyrone which flows into the River Foyle, Lough Foyle and into the Atlantic.

To enable CFCE to prepare a thorough and accurate submission, I have therefore sought clarification on the location of the international boundary in relation to the River Foyle and the identification of the lawful owners of its riverbed, soil and waters, from Donegal County Council - TPC lead. To date this has not been forthcoming.
Clarity on the international boundary is vitally important in the case of Dalradian’s gold mine application. Without a clear agreement on the boundary, citizens of the Irish Republic cannot effectively invoke their rights under the Espoo Convention.
CFCE is therefore urging the Irish Government and Donegal County Council to step in and halt proceedings until this crucial matter is addressed.
As such, until this boundary issue is resolved, the Department for Infrastructure is required to place Dalradian’s planning application on hold.

⏩Catherine McGinty is a journalist covering the North West.

Tyrone Goldmine Proposal Could Trigger ‘Constitutional Crisis’

Mick Collins ✒ Last Wednesday in Omagh at the planning inquiry into the creation of a huge gold mine in Greencastle Brexit and Nationalism reared their ugly heads.

The Department for Infrastructure in the North of Ireland under the stewardship and direction of avowed nationalist – Sein Fein’s John O’Dowd and the previous erstwhile nationalist Minister Nicola Mallon of the SDLP failed to consult Donegal County Council, the citizens of Donegal or the Irish government's own environment agency over plans which would entail discharges into river systems which are connected to the river systems in the Republic of Ireland. It was hugely embarrassing for John O’Dowd who has for decades been part of a political movement that claims the reunification of Ireland as its reason for existence.

The planning inquiry has now being postponed twice and in both instances the inherent issues were in relation to water. The Dalradian project needs water and lots of it, for extraction to run the mining production equipment and filtration systems and for discharge of problematic elements of the gold extraction waste. It is believed by campaigners that Dalradian has only incorporated extraction of 10% of needed water, ninety percent of extraction and where it might come from is hidden in the comprehensive planning papers. The issue never got that far as Brexit reared its ugly and hugely embarrassing head on Wednesday morning.

The Department for Infrastructure did not foresee that omissions of meaningful consultations with the Republic of Ireland constitutes breaches of European environmental and political law. As it stands the British government has not dealt with transboundary issues or even considered it necessary. European law still holds sway until the British Government creates some form of legislative structure to deal with issues which may have effects for the environment and health of its near EU neighbour. The Northern Ireland Office and the very compliant Stormont executive in their haste to facilitate American and Canadian financial investment overlooked their own international obligations. After an intractable and bruising period of post Brexit negotiations over the North and its place in the UK and Europe another intractable issue rears its head. The Dalradian project and the discharge of mine waste could poison the waters of the Norths nearest neighbours in the EU.

Wednesday at the Strule Arts Centre in Omagh was awash with well - heeled and highly - polished government barristers and lawyers, not one of them saw what was coming. Just before Christmas a highly effective campaigner contacted the Belfast Telegraph senior journalist Garett Hargan. Ciaran McClean - the well-known and highly respected son of the late civil rights activist, Paddy Joe McClean - stated that the Department of Infrastructure was failing to consult on transboundary issues. McClean made the Chief Executive of the Planning Appeals Commission aware , the Irish government were made aware, the Department of Infrastructure was made aware, nothing was done. It was the anti-gold mine campaigners from Omagh, Greencastle and Donegal who blew the lack of trans boundary consultation out of the water.

The managing director of Dalradian Gold NI had to sit and listen as the constitutional threads unravelled. His boss in Canada once extolled and waxed lyrical about the most user friendly administration he had ever worked with. He loved telling the story of his family roots in County Antrim. He never foresaw the constant difficulties within the DFI in the North of Ireland. The DFI never had the knowledge or expertise to deal with a huge and controversial planning application. It did not have the nous to realise that there would be serious political difficulties in pushing the application forward. The DFI acted in a highly negligent and unprofessional manner. The DFI appointed a company with very close financial links to the gold industry to manage the planning application and advise senior civil servants who then would advise the minister. The expert consultancy companies representatives have been absent from the planning inquiry. The Department has failed to deliver a workable planning structure to deal with a planning application riddled with inconsistencies.

The anti-gold mine campaigners were once described by mining executives as’ welly wearing farmers’. Disappointingly, for all those attempting to rail road through this most controversial and dangerous of projects, the welly wearing farmers have produced community leaders with highly sophisticated and articulate attributes. It was the welly wearing farmers of Omagh, Greencastle and Donegal who blew the establishment out of the water on Wednesday morning in Omagh. They have left the British Government and Stormont Executive with a conundrum it would appear they do not have the expertise or intellectually capacity to either solve or deal with. As with Brexit it will be Europe who will come up with the solutions. It may be wise to include the welly wearing farmers of the North West of Ireland in any future deliberations.

What is being consistently exposed through the short tortuous hours of the planning inquiry is the failure of the neo-liberalist approach to planning. The concept of light touch regulation has created critical problems and threw up deep lying inconsistencies in planning and constitutional law. The gold mining executives in Toronto and New York have realised that their ‘wild west’ attitude to planning and the environment does not sit well when confronted with intelligence and sophisticated competitive actions. One campaigner stated on Wednesday that the planning application should be buried in the bog it aims to destroy. One thing is for certain – ignorance and hubris will never solve an intractable problem.

⏩Mick Collins is a trade union co-ordinator and analyst from the North West of Ireland.

An Essay On The Welly Wearing Farmers Of West Tyrone

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