This article is from page 12 of the 2006-02-21 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 12 JPG
CALLS were made last night to tear down mobile phone dishes erected without permission.
Clare County Councillors were discussing the planning guidelines surrounding the erection of phone masts.
Councillor Tom Prendeville (FF), who had asked the director of services to brief the meeting on the planning guidelines, said that in West Clare there was one mast with planing permission for just three antennae “and it has twelve pieces of telecommunications equipment on it.”
The councillor said there was “huge concern “about the possible health risks of living close to a mast.
“Unions are so concerned about the risks, that workers are only allowed up to work on these masts for 14 minutes at a time and then they have to come down for sixteen minutes. The companies who are making profits from the masts should be made to prove that there is no danger to health,” Cllr Prendeville said.
The councillor said he was also very concerned that new government planning legislation would take away the local authority’s powers to make decisions about giving planning permission for masts.
Another concern, the councillor said, was the proximity of some masts to schools.
“These are vulnerable children.”
In his reply to the councillor, the local authority’s Director of Services, Tom Carey, said that the Government guidelines in the matter had been published in 1996 and these were considered in preparing a policy on masts for the county.
The council had adopted a distance of 50 metres as being outside the area of close proximity which was thought to be harmful.
He added that government guidelines did not provide for minimum distances between existing buildings and proposed new masts.
Fine Gael Councillor Madeleine Taylor Quinn said that the planing enforcement officer “should be sent out and companies made to take down additional dishes which don’t have planning permission.
“These private companies are making massive profits on the backs and the health of the people.”
Green councillor, Brian Meaney, warned that there would be “a further blossoming of masts with the roll-out of ‘3G’ technology.”