A judicial review of An Bord Pleanála's decision, announced yesterday, to grant planning permission for the controversial Corrib gas terminal in Co Mayo may now be sought by one of the most vocal objectors to the €800 million project.
Ms Maura Harrington, a schoolteacher, mentioned the possibility of seeking a judicial review last night less than an hour after receiving the news that An Bord Pleanála had sanctioned the onshore terminal at Bellanaboy.
Ms Harrington declared: "My reaction of disgust is based on the fact that An Bord Pleanála, either with Government approval or under Government pressure, could be so bloody awful as to give one of the dirtiest corporations on earth carte blanche in the entity that is Erris".
Ms Harrington claimed that the conditions imposed by An Bord Pleanála in a situation where Mayo County Council was the implementing body were, in her estimation, worth no more than "very low-grade loo paper".
Elsewhere across the industrial and job-creation sphere in Mayo, the reaction to the decision has been unanimously positive.
The North Mayo Action Group, which has been set up to find replacement jobs for the region following the closure of the ESB's peat-powered electricity generating station at Bellacorick and the local Bord Na Móna works later this year, has wholeheartedly welcomed the ruling.
The group's spokesman, Mr Chris Tallott, said that upwards of 240 jobs locally would be lost in the next six months.
"We welcome any jobs that would fill the vacuum provided that the health and safety concerns of local residents are addressed," he said.
He added that, apart from jobs, the infrastructure the gas project would deliver for the Erris area was vital.
Mr Tallott highlighted the fact that a proposal to provide a gas-powered electricity-generating station at Bellacorick was dependent on the gas coming ashore in Mayo and being processed locally.
The president of Ballina Chamber of Commerce, Mr Matt Farrell, said the decision by An Bord Pleanála was to be welcomed in the light of the loss of 700 jobs in the past five years in the Ballina area alone.
Investments by local entrepreneurs in job investment, although worthwhile and to be welcomed, had been unable to compensate for the job losses, he said.
The boost provided by the €800 million gas terminal would be on a scale never witnessed in the area before except, perhaps, when the Japanese company, Asahi, located at Killala in the 1970s, he added.
Welcoming the decision, a Fine Gael councillor for the Belmullet area, Mr Gerry Coyle, predicted that Corrib gas would "start the engine" which would bring greater prosperity to Erris and drive the area forward.
Mr Coyle also called for people to put an end to the divisions which had marked the gas debate so far.
"I want the people of Erris to move forward as a united team to secure a better standard of living and better infrastructure," he said.
"If I lived beside the proposed terminal I might feel differently, too," he added.
Mr Coyle also predicted that many emigrants in Britain would want to return and work here once the project began.