Sir, – Everyone in west Clare is celebrating the recognition of the Loop Head Peninsula as the overall winner in The Irish Times Best Place to Holiday in Ireland competition.
But the imminent arrival of fracking to the area threatens the rugged natural beauty of the whole region. The current Government – led by Ministers Rabbitte and O’Dowd – is intent on licensing Enegi Oil plc to explore and then drill for gas using fracking (or unconventional gas extraction).
Local tourism businesses and local residents face the transformation of the area into an industrial wasteland of toxic stillponds. Local farmers face ruined ground water and aquifers from a myriad of wells leaking toxic chemicals.
Indeed, it is an inconvenient industry fact that oil and gas wells will leak over time.
Moreover, the west Clare area is geologically unsuitable for this type of process and the whole Shannon estuary is threatened by this ruinous technology.
There is a growing realisation of the economic futility of the fracking project and of the horrific price in environmental disaster that will be paid by future generations of people in west Clare and across Ireland for this fiasco.
Let’s all keep Ireland fracking free. – Yours, etc,
MARK WILSON-PIERCE,
Kilrush, Co Clare.