Sir, - Lough Key Forest Park, near Boyle in north Roscommon, features two lengthy tunnels. These were designed so that the peasants could deliver food and fuel to the elite classes in the Rockingham Estate of the 18th century, without been seen.
Now Coillte is to sell off the park to American businessmen. Planning permission has been granted to develop the park into a golf course and five star hotel. Bord Failte has approved a £4.5 million grant. The landed gentry of the last century are to be replaced by the monied, golf playing gentry of this century.
The idea has been sold to the local community on the promise of 300 jobs, a very exaggerated figure indeed. We have a serious unemployment problem. However the creation of a few jobs from the destruction of a place of peace and beauty is scraping the bottom of the barrel. This kind of enterprise is an indicator of how hopeless the present approach to work and welfare is.
Creating jobs which impact on our own environment is a dead end. At the heart of the unemployment problem lies the unfair distribution of wealth, and the unfair distribution of effort needed to create wealth. The key - to solving unemployment lies in addressing these maldistributions and not in the creation of jobs which are socially and environmentally destructive.
Lough Key is a national asset which is available to everyone, and should remain so. Only the elite of the 20th century will be able to afford the steep club membership fees and the expensive hotel rooms. The dark tunnels of the 18th century have been replaced by the even darker tunnels of modern day greed. - Yours, etc.
Green Party Spokesman for Enterprise and Employment, 16 Presentation Road,
Galway.