Wind farm group offered #0.25m to Derrybrien to back application

The landslide at Derrybrien in south Galway took a new twist last night when local residents confirmed that the community had been offered up to £0.25 million in 1998 in return for supporting a wind farm planning application in the area.

The Derrybrien residents had received the offer from Saorgus Energy, the Kerry-based wind farm consultancy and owners of the Slieve Aughty site - where a €60 million wind farm is now being constructed by the ESB subsidiary, Hibernian Wind Power.

Mr Martin Collins, of the Derrybrien Concerned Residents Association, said the community did not accept the offer, which was made in writing by Dr Aidan Forde and Mr Mike Barry of Saorgus Energy on March 6th, 1998.

The offer of £5,000 per 15 megawatts over 20 years - amounting to £0.25 million in total - involved three conditions.

These included a stipulation that a Derrybrien development association be properly constituted and that it should support the planning application under preparation by the company for a wind farm on the mountainside.

A subsequent letter sent in April 1998 repeated the offer, but dropped a condition that the community would support the company's planning application, Mr Collins says.

Mr Collins said that the community had a series of meeting with Saorgus at the time and had met Hibernian Wind Power when it became involved in leasing the site from Saorgus.

The residents opposed the wind farm developments throughout and believe that the landslide on October 16th last was caused by work on the 71-turbine project.

Hibernian Wind Power has said it is too early to establish a definite cause and all work has been suspended on the project while stabilisation works continue.

Mr Collins said the community had not sought this sum of money from Saorgus nor had it received any payment. He said it was producing the letter now because "this whole thing has got out of hand and a gun has been put to our head".

The Derrybrien residents have repeatedly demanded that an independent investigation be carried out into the cause of last month's landslide and have called on the EU Environment Commissioner to halt the project.

Saorgus Energy declined to make any comment last night when contacted by The Irish Times.