€1.3m spent on ill-fated mast project

It has cost the Government more than €300,000 to store an obsolete 219m (720ft) navigational mast proposed for Loop Head.

The Government now says the mast - which would have been the third-highest structure in Ireland - will not be installed.

The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Noel Dempsey, confirmed it has cost €326,000 to store the Loran C mast. This is in addition to the €1 million the Government spent on the ill-fated project, including €479,000 on buying 139 acres of land at Loop Head, and a further €561,000 on legal and planning fees.

Mr Dempsey said the Government paid €27,839 in storage costs this year alone before ownership of the mast transferred to France in April.

Throughout the 1990s, a community group in west Clare, the Cross Loran C Action Group, fought a long legal battle, including two Supreme Court cases, to prevent the Government from erecting the Loran C mast.

A spokesman for the group, which opposes the mast on health and environmental grounds, said yesterday: "Action should have been taken a number of years ago by the Government to dispose of the mast, rather than continue to pay these storage costs.

"The reasons being now put forward by the department as to why Loran C will not be going ahead are the same reasons put forward by the Loran C Action Group 10 years ago, and the primary reason being that no-one would use the system."

Green Party leader Trevor Sargent, who tabled a Dáil question on the issue, said yesterday: "The spend on storage is another example of the Government playing fast and loose with tax-payers' money, and it owes the people an explanation as to why it allowed the situation drag on for so long when it knew that Loran C would not become operational." In 1992, Ireland signed an agreement with Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and France to install the €32 million Loran C system, which was designed as a low-frequency long-wave aid for mariners.

However, the plans became ensnared in the planning and legal processes due to strong local opposition.

The Supreme Court finally paved the way for the construction of the mast in 1998.

The Government agreed that special legislation would have to go before the Oireachtas, but none was enacted.

Four years ago Germany and Norway withdrew from the international agreement.

Ireland, along with Denmark, Germany, Norway and Holland, have now denounced the agreement, which takes legal effect from the end of this year.

A Communications department spokesman said yesterday a use for the 139 acres of land would be decided upon next June.