The Grand Finale – as Eithne coined it. If I had written this as part of a book, I would’ve looked at the finished piece and said it was far too unrealistic – my catchphrase, “that would never happen in real life.” The Inspector Derek Daly outlined the schedule for the last day of the oral hearing, day seventeen – we’d begin with questions to Dr Fergal Callaghan, Indaver’s … [Read more...]

Sure wasn’t Indian Summers last night just amazing. Every writer ever wishes they’d written that. Monday 16th May – day sixteen – began at 3pm with questions on coastal erosion to the ARUP expert for Indaver Julie Ascoop, and to Joanna O’Brien, I believe also for ARUP but I may be wrong. The Inspector pointed out how Indaver have said that flooding will be mitigated by … [Read more...]

Day fifteen on the oral hearing began with a reply from the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) to Indaver’s Dixon Brosnan report, given to us on Thursday 28th April. Jervis Good from the NPWS spoke – the same man who gave to us the then Department of Arts, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht’s submission in the first week. He read from an article – Selck et al, 2016; in the … [Read more...]

Our fourteenth day – Wednesday 11th – began with a response from the Department of Defence to Indaver’s response to their objection. Their objection centred on how they’d need a no-fly zone around the stack; Indaver sought to disprove the experts by producing no fewer than three documents explaining why a no-fly zone wasn’t needed. Today, the Department responded to those … [Read more...]

The Inspector passed me in the hall the other day, and nodding to the rain outside the window said, "If this is supposed to be a heatwave then I don't want to know what the next one's going to be like." The whole of Tuesday 10th was for questions on infrastructure generally - including traffic management, HGV movement management, surface water drainage, fire safety, and … [Read more...]