Government acts to overcome community protests against masts
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Draconian legislation is no way to deal with public concern
Seán MacManus
- Seán MacManus
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The government has had a very rough ride over the phone masts issue.
There have been widespread protests all over the country. People
have torn the masts down by hooking them up to tractors, and cut them
up with angle grinders. People have mounted 24-hour pickets over
weeks to ensure the masts did not get up or the companies get onto
the land. A government deal with ESAT to allow them, without planning
permission, to put their mobile phone transmitters onto Garda station
masts, brought massive protests, many of which have been successful.
d then at the start of April, the government introduced its answer
- a draconian legislative proposal which allows mobile phone
companies to get the land they want for a mast by compulsory
acquisition order, without agreement from the landowner and without
any recourse to local government, still less Bord Pleannála.
It is an incredible proposal, which it appears the government is
trying to sneak through. It is due to be debated in Leinster House
before the summer.
The bill has been described by John Toolan of BRAIN, (The Ballinamore
Radiation and Information Network) as a ``quite breathtaking raid into
the area of private property rights'' which would drive a coach and
horses through most basic and long-established civil, legal and
constitutional rights.
The bill, which is called The Telecommunications (Infrastructure)
Bill, 1999, proposes that a network operator can reach agreement with
a landowner to erect a mast, or, where the landowner does not agree,
the operator can apply to a three-person board for an ``acquisition
order'' to ``acquire compulsorily a right over land for the purpose of
establishing or maintaining fixed telecommunications infrastructure''.
Furthermore, under the proposed bill, a nominee of the network
operator's may come onto the land ``to survey, line sight, drill,
bore, probe or excavate, or carry out soil tests, and, where
necessary, remove soil''.
The landowner may not ``unreasonably'' withhold consent for the nominee
to enter the land, and owners who get the notice in time have just 14
days to go to a District Court, to restrict access of the nominee -
on which matter the court alone has discretion.
The proposed legislation is characteristic of ``Banana Republic''
order. It is a draconian way to suppress popular protest and real
concerns on grounds of health and preservation of the landscape, as
well as concerns over the devaluation of property which are the
results of the erection of the masts. And at what costs to civil
rights? Is this the cost of providing an attractive environment to
telecommunications companies to enter the Irish market to bid for the
share which Telecom intends to sell in June, when Telecom Éireann is
due to be privatised?
The reasoning behind the proposed legislation is quite evident. The
government is gearing up to the sell-off of Telecom Éireann shares,
supposedly to open up the telcommunications market to liberalisation
in line with EU laws. Of course, the sell-off will do no such thing -
the market will be dominated, as it is at present, by one or two of
the world's largest conglomerates in this supposedly infinite growth
sector. But ``putting in place a favourable environment'' for the
institutional and corporate buyers of Telecom's shares is directed
towards ensuring a heavy oversubscription for the shares to ensure a
high price at flotation. The only beneficiary will be the exchequer,
which will be selling valuable assets belonging to the public, in
order to pay off debt. Crazy economics by any measure, especially
when the exchequer is awash with money.
However the bill would allow mobile phone companies to do whatever
they wanted, wherever they wanted, ``It makes a complete farce of
planning regulations. At least at present, these companies must seek
permission from the local authority and Bord Pleannála,'' says
Leitrim Sinn Féin Councillor Liam McGirl. ``Are our legal and civil
rights so cheap? It raises the question who is governing this
country, for whose benefit?''
It was Liam McGirl who last March successfully brought a Section 30
motion (Under the 1963 Local Government) which overturned the Leitrim
county manager's decision to give planning permission for a mast at
Tully, Ballinamore.
``All the way down the West coast there have been protests at the
masts,'' Sean MacManus, Sinn Féin's EU election candidate in Connacht,
points out. ``This proposed legislation is simply no way to deal with
the peoples' just concerns over their health and their environment.
``As it is, successive governments have behaved disgracefully over the
masts issue. In 1996, Nora Owen, minister in the previous government,
made a deal with ESAT. That company got exemption from planning
controls to install equipment on existing masts at 217 Garda
stations. In return for this, ESAT agreed to assist Garda Stations,
to the tune of £3 million, in upgrading their systems to a digital
system.
When ESAT looked to extend this to a further 201 masts in other Garda
Stations which had not already installed masts, they were turned down
for planning permission, and out of 145 applications, only 12 had
been granted by the end of last year.
Opposition by local authorities has been widespread. In Kerry, Mayo
and Donegal alone, a total of 33 mast applications have been refused
to ESAT. By the end of last year, ESAT already had 500 base stations
or masts, which includes the 217 they got to use in Garda stations,
and the company claims to be able to cover 93% of the 26 counties.
One of the things which has angered local people most has been An
Bord Pleannála which in some cases has overturned local authority
refusals of planning permission to put up a mast - often refused by
the council in the first place because it contravened the council's
own development plan, which is passed and agreed by the full council.
``It would seem that we only pay the merest lip-service to planning
regulations. There is no regard for local councils' authority in
planning matters. This is something which has to change,'' says Sean
MacManus.
The issue of the masts came to a head last summer, when people in the
small village of Keel, on Achill Island, objected to an ESAT mast
going up on their local Garda Station. Sixty Gardai were brought in
from other areas to protect ESAT's interests and to override the
feelings of local people. Five people were arrested, handcuffed and
held in the station for several hours.
There was similar angry protest in Donegal at Kerrykeel Garda
station, and people were arrested, as they had been in Achill, by
some 150 gardai, drafted into the village to ensure the erection of
the mast. But the government and Gardai had to back off under threat
from Independent TD Harry Blaney, who made it clear that he would not
be able to get to Dublin to vote for the Budget unless matters were
resolved in Kerrykeel.
Mildred Fox, the Independent TD for Wicklow, then wanted to know why,
if contracts for masts could be set aside in Donegal, shouldn't they
be set aside in Wicklow. Scarcely democracy, but then it worked in
defence of the people.
It remains to be seen whether the admirable concern of these deputies
for the opinions of local people against the erection of masts will
lead them to challenge the government's new legislation on masts when
it comes to the sticking point in Leinster House this summer.
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