TRUMP WALL SPARKS FURY IN CLARE...
Anger as sturdy fence appears on dunes
ENVIRONMENTALISTS are threatening legal action against a Donald Trump hotel amid a row about a fence on sand dunes.
Co Clare council chiefs have been asked to probe allegations that the hotel used official local authority signs as part of the fence.
The Friends of the Irish Environment group made the request and have also asked Heritage Minister Malcolm Noonan to intervene.
The environmentalists say their legal threat relates to an alleged fence construction on sand dunes at Doughmore Strand in Doonbeg.
The Star contacted Trump International Golf Links and Hotel, Clare County Council, and the Department
of Heritage about the claims.
A spokesperson for the Friends of the Irish Environment said: “The fence is made of large wooden poles, set deeply into the ground at regular intervals.
“These are adjacent to the sand dunes with wooden planks running horizontally across them, holding in place a perforated plastic sheet.”
The group’s director Tony Lowes said: “The placement of signs with Clare County Council logos along the fence appears to indicate that the structure is approved by the local authority.”
Mr Lowes has questioned this.
A spokesperson at Clare
County Council told The Star that it will respond to the queries “as soon as possible”.
Mr Lowes added: “FIE has written to Malcolm Noonan, Minister for Heritage, noting the international attention Doonbeg has attracted.
Concerns
“We are asking him to initiate enquiries into this issue, as the only recourse left to us is to reluctantly use our limited resources to issue legal proceedings which we only do when all other avenues have been exhausted.”
The FIE group objects to any construction using wooden poles at the dunes due to concerns that these could be contrary to local authority conservation objectives of not permitting physical obstructions or barriers.
It comes after Co
Clare locals voiced their disappointment that Donald Trump had scrapped plans to visit Ireland this year.
The businessman had been due to jet in to his luxury hotel and golf resort in Doonbeg last month, but later ditched the visit.
Clare journalist Peter O’Connell said at the time: “He’s a global talking point and any visit would have been a huge opportunity in that respect.
“Wouldn’t say there’s devastation but there would be a bit of disappointment.”
DONALD Trump has praised the late Queen Elizabeth II as a “great woman and a great Queen” and claimed they had “great chemistry” .
He said: “She was a woman that was just extraordinary, just an extraordinary woman, a great woman who could be greater than what she’s done and she did it so long, so well, and never made mistakes.
“Just think about it, right? Just never made a mistake. She was incredible.
“And I’ll never forget, I said ‘who is your favourite president?’
And she says ‘why, I liked them all. I liked every one of them’.
“I said ‘no, no, but who did you like the best? Well, actually, I liked them all’. I said ‘who is your favourite Prime Minister?
Why, I loved them all, I liked them all, every
one of them’. “You
wouldn’t walk out and say ‘she liked this one, she liked that one’, she liked them all. It was something very special.”