Harte Coyle Collins make Dalradian Gold Mine Inquiry notes publicly available with support of the PILS Project
The Public Local Inquiry into the controversial Dalradian gold mine (‘the Curraghinalt Project’), due to run from January to March 2025, sat for only three of the planned twenty-one days of hearings before procedural failings by the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) resulted in the suspension of the inquiry.
This is the second time the inquiry timetable has been upended by failures of government departments to abide by their own regulations with an omission by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) causing the inquiry to be pushed back by four months.
The Planning Appeals Commission (PAC), the body charged with undertaking the inquiry, had in March of last year raised the issue of the lack of a transboundary consultation by the DfI as required by law to consider the impact of the goldmine proposal on the Republic and to invite submissions from the Dublin government, relevant statutory authorities and citizens who may be affected.
Our client, Mr Martin Tracey, has consistently called on the PAC and the DfI to conduct this inquiry fairly and transparently and believes this most recent failing by the Department demonstrates that;
“the Department will push this process on as fast as possible, regardless of how many of its own regulations it breaches and regardless of whose voices it ignores, to reach what may be a pre-determined outcome where permission is granted for the Curraghinalt Project”.
The PAC has refused, despite requests from organisations such as the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) and Friends of the Earth, to retain a public written record of the proceedings or to livestream the inquiry.
Cathal Mullan of Harte Coyle Collins, Solicitors & Advocates said today;
“The Dalradian goldmine proposal will be one of the most significant industrial and potentially environmentally disastrous developments on this island. It will have lasting impacts on our natural environment and on our ability to meaningfully meet our obligations to address climate change. A record of the proceedings before the PAC should be kept and the inquiry livestreamed to allow for the wider public to have access to the information presented in favour of and against this application. Continuous failures by those government bodies charged with the protection of our wellbeing and environment underscore the need for anxious scrutiny by civil society of these proceedings.”
With the support of the PILS Project we are sharing detailed notes of the proceedings of the first three days of the hearings to help address the lack of transparency evident in the inquiry process. You can write to the inquiry at dalradian.cpi@pacni.gov.uk or sign this petition to request the PAC to change their procedures to livestream the inquiry, take a public record of the proceedings and allow expert witnesses to participate online if they cannot be present.
We are grateful to our client Mr Martin Tracey for permission to share these notes in the public interest and for the support of the PILS Project.
The inquiry is set to reconvene on 26th March 2025. Notes from the 3 days of hearing to date are available on the links below.
Mr Tracey is represented by the Environmental Law team at Harte Coyle Collins, Nichola Harte, Patricia Coyle, Cathal Mullan, Meadbh O’Dowd, and counsel Dan O’Muirigh BL.
