A house-building company in Cork city has committed no offence in destroying a cliff containing numerous nests for sand martins recently arrived from north Africa, according to the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
D. and J. Builders Ltd has planning permission to build 58 houses on a six-acre site at The Glen, which had been in use as a quarry, and the company insists that it is doing what it can to protect the local sand martin colony.
According to Reclaim the Glen, a group campaigning to protect what it regards as a unique wildlife habitat, some of the nests were bulldozed during site development works last month.
But the group was informed by Mr Bernard Moloney, of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, that it is not an offence under the Wildlife Act 1976 for builders to "remove, injure or destroy the nests of a protected wild bird". Following a complaint from the group, he said the site had been visited by conservation management staff and the developers were "advised . . . about timing building work so as to minimise disturbance of the sand martin colonies". It was one of the conditions laid down by An Bord Pleanála last September, when it confirmed Cork City Council's decision to grant planning permission for the housing scheme, that the sand martin nesting places would be protected.
Despite opposition to any development in The Glen, which had been given to the people of Cork in the late 1960s by Sir Basil Goulding, Cork City Council decided in January of last year, by 26 votes to three, to allow the scheme to proceed.
The six-acre quarry site was owned at the time by Mr Val O'Connor, a Cork undertaker and businessman with extensive property interests. He subsequently sold it, reportedly for €2 million, to D. and J. Construction Ltd.
The company's managing director, Mr Jim Coleman, told The Irish Times