Friends of the Irish Environment

15/04/2026

Monaghan airstrip plan ‘cannot be lawfully approved’

FIE has called on Monaghan County Council to refuse the retention of a private airstrip and a proposed aircraft hangar near Castleblayney, saying the application breaches climate law and fails basic planning standards.

The application does not define how the airstrip would operate, including aircraft type, flight numbers, flight paths or hours, making it impossible to assess its environmental impact and legal compliance cannot be demonstrated.

We argue that the proposal cannot comply with the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act, which requires councils to ensure decisions align with national emissions targets. We also highlight that the development is 3 kilometres from Lough Egish, a sensitive ecological receptor designated as a proposed Natural Heritage Area (pNHA) under the Wildlife (Amendment) Act 2000 and is identified in the Monaghan County Development Plan as the
foremost wintering area for wildfowl in the county.

Submission:https://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.org/images/AIR/2660078%20Monoghan%20private%20air%20strip%2013.04.26.pdf

01/04/2026

APRIL FOOLS?
Our “Gardaí swoop on peat bogs and Dublin Port” Press Release (clearly embargoed for 0.01 AM 1 April) seems to have landed a bit too well – we’ve never had so many opens, calls or confused (and angry) journalists. ‘Did they swoop in our area?” “Can you verify your Press Release”. And - “You’d better issue a retraction – the EPA is getting a lot of calls”.
Let’s be clear. There is no National Environmental Enforcement Agency.
There were no dawn raids on bogs, no seized peat ships.
There was no Facebook post from the “Cut Turf We Will” bog group saying said that there was no need for this action as the “clear linkage” between turf cutting and runaway climate change meant that “We cannot in good conscience continue to cut turf when every sod has become another nail in the coffin”, their post did not say.
We continue to export 300,000 tons of peat without a scrap of planning permissions in an entirely unregulated illegal industry netting someone €40 million a year.

Sorry. It was just an April Fool.

In coordinated actions under “Make Bogs Great Again” Gardaí moved onto more than 38 large‑scale commercial bogs in seven midland counties, seizing and disabling machinery on the basis of a court order issued yesterday morning.

28/03/2026

FIE has lodged an extensive appeal against the infilling of a long abandoned quarry that has regenerated uibnto a biodiversity ht spot – to replace it with monoculture grassland for 'agriculture'.

The quarry sits on what the National Parks and Wildlife Service has described as a “biological motorway” of wet woodland linking Derrycassan Wood and pNHA Lough Gowna, and a vital local amenity for angling, swimming and family recreation.

Recent All Ireland bat monitoring shows Derrycassin Woods holds the highest recorded activity of Whiskered bat in Ireland – one of the country’s rarest woodland bats protected under EU law. Underlining the importance of keeping this corridor intact, Whiskered bats switch roost every 2–5 days and move along treelines and hedgerows, so they need a wide, continuous network of woodland and scrub, not just one protected roost.

Nothing could mock the fine words of the new Longford Biodiversity Plan more than this destruction.
Read the PR with a link to the 55 page Appeal.

https://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.org/press-releases/appeal-lodged-to-stop-death-by-a-thousand-cuts-to-nature-at-longford-quarry

27/02/2026

We’ve just made a detailed submission to the Oireachtas Committee on Transport about the new Dublin Airport (Passenger Cap) Bill 2026.

Our big concern? The Bill would switch off key parts of Ireland’s Climate Act when decisions are being made about Dublin Airport’s passenger numbers. That means some of the most important choices on long‑term aviation emissions and infrastructure could be taken without applying the climate obligations that normally guide public bodies.

The Climate Act was designed so that climate responsibility runs across all areas of government, not all except aviation. Creating special exemptions risks undermining Ireland’s ability to meet its own climate targets, as well as its commitments under EU law and the Paris Agreement.

Right now, most aviation emissions are outside Ireland’s carbon budget system and Climate Action Plans, so pushing ahead with big capacity decisions at the airport would be happening in a kind of “policy vacuum” for aviation emissions.

We’re asking the Committee to:

Recommend that this proposal be withdrawn, and

Ensure any future decisions on aviation capacity follow existing climate law and proper environmental assessment.

If you’re worried about climate action being weakened, please share this post and keep an eye on this debate in the Oireachtas.

Read the submission:https://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.org/images/Airport/FIE_Pre-Legislative_Scrutiny_of_General_Scheme_Dublin_Airport_Passenger_Cap_Bill.pdf

25/02/2026

New Expert Report Warns Shannon Water Abstraction ‘Premature and Unsafe for Nature’

FIE’s submission on one of the most significant infrastructure developments to be proposed within the State in recent decades. Considering that it involves abstracting water from the River Shannon at Parteen, where the downstream Water Framework Directive waterbody is at Poor Status. This we submit has certain legal consequences which should have been apparent to Uisce Éireann, and which should have been addressed prior to bringing forward this application. It is our respectful submission that the application is fatally flawed in legal terms, and is therefore premature.

Read the submission
https://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.org/images/Water/PA92_323980_FIE_Uisce_Eireann_Parteen%2025.02.26.pdf

And see the current (last weekend) - and before - photographs:

16/02/2026

In a heart wrenching proposal, the land owners of an extensive grazing lands have applied to reinstate approximately 1.26 hectares 3 acres) of a worked‑out quarry void by importing 100,000 tonnes of inert soil and stone over five years, with the stated objective of "prevent[ing] further land slips on adjoining field" and “restoring the land to agricultural use”.
The quarry void has naturally regenerated into a mosaic of wet willow woodland, scrub and recolonising bare ground, bounded by mature mixed treelines, with standing water in the void. This is now a semi‑natural habitat complex embedded in an otherwise intensively managed agricultural landscape.
The sole photographic evidence of alleged "land slip": a single wind‑thrown boundary tree with the adjoining field and remaining treeline intact, indicating a localised windthrow event rather than progressive slope failure.
Amongst a raft of Government Policies promising protection of biodiversity, the County’s own newly adopted 2025 Biodiversity Plan should read its own foreword by the Cathaoirleach's who nails it in one:
"While it can be said that biodiversity worldwide has faced a 'death by a thousand cuts', we must now orchestrate life by a thousand actions—each deliberate, each meaningful, each adding to the symphony of recovery we wish to conduct."
Will they do so?

Read the 17 page submission [The last day for submissions [Planning application 2660008] is 19 February, 2026.]

The FIE submission:https://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.org/images/Planning/The%20Rock/Planning%20Objection%20The%20Rocks%2013.02.26.pdf

03/02/2026

That energy security can be achieved through establishing a LNG supply controlled by an unpredictable US President is what we are asked to believe. It requires some thinking. For a start, the suggestion that you can ‘store’ frozen (‘cryogenic’) LNG is simply not true - these terminals are designed for continuous flow - otherwise the LNG (at 1/600th of its original volume) will leak as it inevitably heats at a rate of 6 fills a year - more than enough to supply all Ireland with all the energy we need.
Security means resilience and is found in our own renewables, demand reduction, storage and inter connectors. This retrograde proposal - with a single week for public consultation - is in any way anything but an international political gambit that runs against the will of the people and undermines climate law, opening Ireland to LNG through competition requirements.
This is not energy security. It is a lock in to damaging fossile fuels and a surrender of Ireland’s attempt at energy independence.

Read the Press Release with https://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.org/press-releases/fie-warns-strategic-gas-bill-undermines-energy-security-and-climate-law

01/01/2026

‘Terminal decline’ of protected snail threatens Trump’s Irish Ballroom

An Irish Court Order and Letter of Comfort issue in April of 2000 requires the ‘maintaining or improving’ of the status of the rare snail Angustior vertigo at Trump’s Doonbeg golf course. Instead, the snail is facing ‘terminal decline’, according to the development application’s Screening for Appropriate Assessment.

The developers says that the proposed changes for the construction of the Ballroom and associated drainage and site development will ‘have no adverse impact’ on the snail.

But that is not what the planning permission reinforced by a five-day High Court hearing requires. The developers must show how they ‘maintaining or improving’ the status of the snail before they can be granted any new permission.

The State is intent on restricting the rights of organisation like ourself – and the affected public – from taking Judicial Review of planning permissions. In fact, they needn’t bother. Just continue to ignore the enforcement of planning requirements.

Read the PR:
https://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.org/press-releases/terminal-decline-of-protected-snail-threatens-trumps-irish-ballroom

25/12/2025

12/12/2025

FIE goes to High Court to defend Minister’s salmon farm closure

FIE has brought a High Court judicial review supporting the Minister for Agriculture’s 2019 decision to discontinue Mowi Ireland’s entitlement to continue salmon farming at Deenish in Ballinskelligs Bay, Co Kerry, unless and until a new, law compliant licence is granted. The Minister’s decision followed findings of serious and repeated breaches of a 500 tonne annual harvest limit at the site.
Mowi Ireland had appealed the decision to the Aquaculture License Appeals Board [ALAB] which in September 2025 reversed the Minister ruling and permitted the operation to continue. FIE is asking the High Court to quash ALAB’s determination and to restore the Minister’s decision to bring operations at Deenish to an end.

Lice and escapees are the leading environmental impacts. A recent 18-year study by Inland Fisheries Ireland found that, on average, there was an 18 per cent drop in survival among young salmon that weren’t treated for lice. Escapes from salmon farms in Ireland have also involved hundreds of thousands of fish over recent decades, with individual recent incidents running to many thousands of salmon.

IFI’s Report found an 80% decline in wild salmon returning to Irish rivers over the last 20 years.

https://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.org/press-releases/ngo-goes-to-high-court-to-defend-ministers-salmon-farm-closure-order

08/12/2025

‘Free Parking’ for Christmas ‘unlawful and bad for business’

FIE is appealing to Naas Councillors urging them not to back a proposal tomorrow to suspend pay parking in Naas from 15–31 December 2025. Contrary to what most people think, suspending pay parking will increase car use by encouraging short avoidable car trips that would otherwise be made by active modes, increasing congestion and emissions. Unpriced parking encourages long-stay commuters and so reduces car-space turnover, making it harder for genuine shoppers to find a space. 'Free' parking can harm local traders and town-centre vitality, ultimately leading to lost retail and council revenue. Oh – and the Councillors do not have the power to suspend the legally established parking charges.

Read the Press Release
https://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.org/press-releases/free-parking-for-christmas-unlawful-and-bad-for-business-says-fie

Or the full submission
https://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.org/images/Planning/FIE%20Submission%20on%20Proposed%20Christmas%20Suspension%20of%20Pay%20Parking%20Naas%20MD.pdf