A wind turbine company is being sued by a farming community in Kerry one year after a bog slide - which has still not been cleared - blocked access to their land. Residents of Lyrecrom­pane in the Stack mountains have insisted that the wind farm - currently being developed by Tralee-based Tra Investments - is to blame for last August's bog slide.

The third wet summer in succession - rainfall for July alone was more than three times above normal in parts of Munster and Leinster - again sparks fears of landslides. We've had several examples in recent years of unexpected slippages which are sometimes described as ‘Ireland's greatest natural hazards', given that we don't have even more devastating phenomena such as earthquakes and volcanoes. Landslides are on the increase due mainly to climate change and man's activities, including wind farm construction.

The board overturned the decision after the granting of planning was recommended by An Bord Pleanala's own inspector who recommended the development go ahead with 21 conditions. The inspector gave the go-ahead because of the general suitability of the site for wind power electricity generation, the absence of amenity or conservation designations and the distance from existing housing.

Developers who consistently abuse the planning system could be banned from building in Ireland, under legislation being drafted by the minister for the environment. ...The ban on planning retention for developments requiring an EIA was prompted by a judgment by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) last July. ...The judgment related to a wind farm at Derrybrien, Co Galway, where the construction of a service road caused a landslide on a blanket bog.

The EU Environment Commission is to investigate a windfarm development in the Stacks mountains which was at the centre of concerns after a bog slide during heaving rainfall in August. ...Local residents in the Stacks mountains wrote to environment commissioner Stavros Dimas in October to say they were deeply concerned with the manner in which the windfarm at Ballincollig Hill, near Tralee, was being constructed on sensitive bog and to ask that work - which resumed recently - be stopped. The residents said "large tracts of beautiful boglands and rivers" had being damaged in the slide and the nest of a hen harrier, hares and other wildlife disturbed.

Following on from last weeks landslide which is thought to have been caused as a result of work that is being carried out on a wind farm site, Shannon Regional Fisheries Board's Matt Nolan has reported that to date 2,000 small fish have been removed from the Owengar River. ...Having visited the site, Dromahair based Green Party member, Johnny Gogan believes that "it appears that the bogslide resulted from a heavy build up of excavated material on Corrie mountain related to the construction of an access road to the intended wind-farm. Such a liability should have been detected by an effective Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

A bogslide which threatened one of the country's premier fishing lakes appeared to have come to a halt yesterday. For the third consecutive night, geotechnical experts and wind farm and forestry staff remained at the scene of a potential environmental disaster. ...The slide began on Tuesday afternoon during the construction of a road to the Garvagh Glebe North wind farm, a joint project between Coillte and Hibernian Wind Power, a subsidiary of the ESB.

Locals in north Kerry are up in arms at the alleged role of a wind energy firm in the landslide that destroyed a river's salmon and trout stocks. Before the facts of what caused last week's landslide in a north Kerry river network were known, a nearby wind energy firm taking the brunt of the local anger. Prior to the landslide, Tralee-based company Tra Investments had begun site works for an eight-turbine wind farm in the Ballincollig Hill-Maghanknockane area. Within 24 hours of the slide, the company announced that it would commission an independent review into the incident, which it promised to make public.