5G mast opposed in Ireland over health concerns

A lo­cal com­mu­nity in En­nis­crone says it will fight plans to con­struct a 5G telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions mast at an ESB substa­tion in the sea­side vil­lage, cit­ing health con­cerns.

The pro­posed mast would be just me­tres from a res­i­den­tial area and also in close prox­im­ity to five hous­ing es­tates, a creche and a nurs­ing home.

Lo­cals say they feel de­ceived by the way in which the planning no­tice was ad­ver­tised, with it being pub­li­cised in a na­tional news­pa­per the same day as the lo­cal elec­tions were held.

Peo­ple are also tak­ing issue with where the pub­lic planning no­tice was put on the site and people have grave con­cerns about the health im­pli­ca­tions of liv­ing so close to a 5G mast.

Plan­ning for the mast has been granted by Sligo County Coun­cil but lo­cals say this is far from being the end of the mat­ter and they have vowed to fight the de­ci­sion all the way. They are currently plan­ning to hold pub­lic meet­ings on the issue and be­gin work­ing on an ap­peal.

Enniscrone is ab­so­lutely de­fi­ant against the con­struc­tion of a planned 66 foot 5G mast which was re­cently granted plan­ning per­mis­sion by Sligo County Coun­cil.

Res­i­dents of the West Sligo sea­side town are an­gered at the grant­ing of the mast five me­tres from a pub­lic road at Frank­ford, and in close prox­im­ity to five hous­ing es­tates, a creche and a nurs­ing home.

Ea­monn O’Mal­ley who lives di­rectly across the road from the ESB sta­tion and pro­posed site of the mast told The Sligo Cham­pion that the com­mu­nity feel plan­ning was ‘pushed in upon us in a de­ceit­ful way’.

“There are no stud­ies sup­ported to say this is safe, Brussels and Geneva have al­ready stopped the roll out of 5G tech­nol­ogy be­cause they’ve no proof to say that it’s safe.”

5G is the “fifth gen­er­a­tion” cellular net­work tech­nol­ogy. It is faster, con­nect­ing bil­lions of de­vices wire­lessly, from the even­tual self-driv­ing car to all home smart de­vices. It can do this due to speeds up to 20 times faster than 4G.

Mr O’Mal­ley said there is grow­ing concern across the coun­try sur­round­ing the health implications of hav­ing a 5G mast and 5G tech­nol­ogy, with Kerry County Council hav­ing passed a mo­tion to look into it in greater de­tail be­fore it is rolled out.

He said the com­mu­nity do not want to be sit­ting un­der­neath some­thing that could po­ten­tially be harm­ful for their health.

“We’re not will­ing to ac­cept this. ESB net­works are go­ing to be hir­ing out this mast to multi­national tele­com in­ter­na­tion­als for their 5G networks. En­nis­crone is com­pletely op­posed to this.”

The com­mu­nity are plan­ning on hold­ing a pub­lic meet­ing and protests in fu­ture, along with en­list­ing the help of a plan­ning con­sul­tant and solic­i­tor in or­der to look into how to make an ap­peal to An Bord Pleanála.

“It’ll be 20 years down the line when we see what be­ing ex­posed to this 24 hours a day what will hap­pen.”

For Leanne Tuffy, her dreams of build­ing the per­fect house on her fa­ther’s land in the area have now de­scended into concern.

Leanne and her hus­band wanted to ini­tially build up from the cur­rent ESB power sta­tion to be away from over­head lines, how­ever, plan­ning was re­fused.

Ms Tuffy asked why there is dif­fer­ent rules for ESB Net­works in re­la­tion to the ad­ver­tis­ing of the sign when a lo­cal supermarket’s plan­ning was in­val­i­dated due to the way it ad­ver­tised a planned ex­ten­sion.

“If there was no ob­jec­tion in then there should have been ques­tions asked about the sig­nage, be­cause it was in a re­ally densely pop­u­lated area.”

The first Leanne heard of the plan­ning ap­pli­ca­tion for the mast was when it had al­ready been ap­proved.

“The sign was to­tally in­vis­i­ble, there’s lots of ac­tiv­ity up on the site and the gate is al­ways open, it should have been away from all the cau­tion signs, that would have made sense and would have caused peo­ple to take no­tice.” Leanne said there is a feel­ing of ‘dis­be­lief ’ that no­body found out about the plan­ning be­fore it was granted and said the mast’s vis­ual im­pact is not the big prob­lem, but the fear of the unknown in terms of health im­pli­ca­tions.

“We feel like we could be guinea pigs. There’s so many young fam­i­lies around there and no­body has told us about the ra­di­a­tion it could give off. Any­thing I read about it now doesn’t make me feel very com­fort­able about it.”

Lo­cal Councillor Joe Queenan also voiced his dis­dain.

“I’m dis­ap­pointed with the con­struc­tion of it on the ESB prop­erty in the mid­dle of hous­ing estates. The way the ESB went about it is disappointing. They ad­ver­tised it in the Ir­ish In­de­pendent on the day of the elec­tion and the sign they put on the gate is very small and it rotates.”

He added, “Peo­ple didn’t re­alise this ap­pli­ca­tion was live at all un­til the de­ci­sion was made that’s why the anger is.”

Quee­nen too cited health risks be­ing a huge issue for peo­ple.

“The health risks are a big issue re­gard­ing lo­cal res­i­dents liv­ing close to it and they’ve every reason to have con­cerns. Peo­ple are an­noyed and dis­ap­pointed by the way it was be­ing done.”

Quee­nen and col­league Councillor Michael Clarke are putting a mo­tion down about the plan­ning at next week’s Mu­nic­i­pal Dis­trict Meet­ing. “The whole con­struc­tion of this is very close to the pub­lic road. If any­one was build­ing a house it wouldn’t get that close to the road.”

Quee­nen also ques­tioned the logistics of the mast be­ing built on the cur­rent site. “It’s also be­ing built where the ESB have a substa­tion so I ques­tion how they’re go­ing to be able to work the sub sta­tion and this big an­tenna in the mid­dle of it. There are a lot of is­sues about the whole appli­ca­tion and the way it’s be­ing done. The anger from peo­ple is very very strong.

“I think the ESB should have con­sulted with the peo­ple lo­cally, it’s a big de­vel­op­ment and the ESB pride them­selves with be­ing in­volved in the com­mu­nity and they weren’t on this oc­ca­sion.”

Asked if peo­ple felt it was done in an un­derhanded man­ner, Quee­nen said, ‘ab­so­lutely’. “The ad­ver­tis­ing was on the day of a lo­cal elec­tion, it was val­i­dated four days later, it was granted seven weeks later. I’m very an­noyed and dis­ap­pointed.”

He con­cluded, “I’ll be fight­ing this tooth and nail. The most frus­trat­ing thing is no­body spot­ted the ap­pli­ca­tion and it was granted be­fore we could do any­thing about it.”

By Ciara Galvin. Source: Sligo Weekender