An application was lodged on October 24th by the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland, on behalf of the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, to Clare Co. Council for permission for "an Entry Point at Crag Road, Gortlecka, to the Burren National Park, comprising a covered waiting area, toilets, ranger accommodation, ancillary parking, storage and signage. The application includes the removal, retention and completion of elements, including landscaping, reservoir and treatment plant, of a previously proposed visitor centre which will otherwise be backfilled and the land reinstated to its previous condition".
The above quotation is taken directly from a flyer that was delivered to every household in North Clare - at taxpayers' expense - during the week that the planning application was lodged. Irrespective of the ethics of circulating a document that presented only one side of the argument regarding the provision of facilities for the Burren National Park, the obvious questions raised by the wonderfully obscure quotation are:
Factually Gortlecka is Mullaghmore - the planning application is for exactly the same site on which the current illegal structures exist and for which a High Court injunction prohibits further development. The proposed entry point consists of a building of sizable proportions (110 sq. m) comprising offices, store and toilet; together with a covered waiting area (60 sq. m) and an open waiting area (75 sq. m). The total area of the proposed site is approximately 15 ha, of which 6,500 sq. m (>1.5 acres) will be "ancillary parking", with space for 72 cars and 4 mini buses.
Although the accompanying RPS Cairns Environmental Background Document and the flyer highlight the fact that this application is in line with the recommendations outlined in the Draft Burren National Park Study (published in February by Minister Higgins), the draft nature of this study has been conveniently forgotten - as has the large number of submissions made to the Minister upon publication of the Draft.
The Draft Study recommended the "provision of indoor interpretation of the National Park at locations away from the Park itself" - in gateway villages, such as Corofin, Kilfenora and Ballyvaughan. However, a recent written reply to a Dail question querying plans for visitor centre provision at Corofin and Kilfenora ended with the following statement:
At present, various options for the development of facilities at these locations are under investigation, including the question of available funding, and a final decision will be made in due course.
Clearly the Minister, the Commissioners of Public Works and the National Parks and Wildlife Service have decided that the only recommendation in the 3-volume Draft Burren National Park Study that merits immediate action is the provision of visitor facilities at Mullaghmore. Five years have elapsed since Mullaghmore was first targeted es the site for the Burren National Park Visitor/Interpretative/Headquarters centre. The consistent opposition by all national environmental NGOs, the recommendations of the Heritage Council, the submissions made by international bodies involved in National Parks management, and the evident concern by the general public in Ireland and throughout the world have apparently fallen on deaf ears.
An "entry point at Gortlecka" is the thin end of the wedge. The clear message in the RPS Cairns document accompanying the planning application is that a visitor demand at Mullaghmore must be created by "promotion and signposting" - i.e. from the current 3 to 4 cars at weekends to an anticipated 35,000 visitors per annum! One needs only to look at the current scale of visitor facilities, car parking, etc. at the Cliffs of Moher to visualise the potential impact of a positive visitor promotion strategy at Mullaghmore.
This planning application must be opposed. The issues are the same as they were five years ago. The Mullaghmore area is a proposed Natural Heritage Area; it is also a proposed Special Area of Conservation under the Habitats Directive; it was considered in the 1980s as meriting Nature Reserve Status; it is not an appropriate site for targeted visitor pressure. A visitor centre and headquarters for the Burren National Park should, and must, be provided in or near an existing gateway population centre, thereby facilitating concomitant private development and maximising tourism income and job creation.
The tragedy of the past five years is that people who should be working together for the conservation and sustainable development of the Burren have been forced into conflict and that scarce and valuable time, energy and resources have been expended on a proposed development that was ill-considered, wrong and divisive from the outset. The conservation of this unique area, and the long term support of the farming population who have maintained it for all of us over the centuries, are the real priorities that must be addressed.