When lands are being proposed for inclusion within a special area of conservation, special protection area or natural heritage area, each landowner is notified in writing of the proposed designation and is sent an information pack on the relevant site. The information pack explains the scientific reasons for the proposed designation, sets out the activities requiring my prior consent, as Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, and includes information on how to appeal against the proposed designation. A map showing the boundaries and extent of the site is also sent to landowners to help them to determine whether or not their land is located within the site proposed for designation.
Notice of the proposed designation is also:
1. published in at least one newspaper with circulation covering the area in which the site is located, in one national newspaper and on the website of the National Parks and Wildlife Service of my Department;
2. broadcast on a radio channel generally available in the area in which the site is located; and
3. provided for display in local Garda stations, local authority offices, public libraries, local offices of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection and offices of Teagasc.
My Department also notifies the relevant Ministers and public authorities of the proposed designation of a site.
Landowners are also notified of the final formal designation of a site, which takes effect with the signing by me, as Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, of a Statutory Instrument.
Once a site is proposed for designation, a landowner may appeal against the proposed inclusion of the land in question within the site by submission of an appeal in writing within three months of the notification of the proposal to designate the site.
While in most cases appeals are to remove land from a site proposed for designation, a small number of appeals have been received to have lands included within the site.
There were 320 appeals submitted to my Department, in relation to sites proposed for designation as special areas of conservation in County Galway, during the years 2000-2013, of which 60 were successful and 72 were partially successful (the number of appeals submitted includes four appeals to have land included within the site proposed for designation). Details of this information per year are outlined in the table below.
|
Year
|
No. of appeals submitted
|
No. of successful appeals
|
Percentage of appeals submitted that were successful
|
No. of partially successful appeals
|
Percentage of appeals submitted that were partially successful
|
|
2000
|
27
|
8
|
29.6%
|
9
|
33.3%
|
|
2001
|
16
|
4
|
25.0%
|
2
|
12.5%
|
|
2002
|
22
|
2
|
9.1%
|
1
|
4.5%
|
|
2003
|
11
|
5
|
45.5%
|
3
|
27.3%
|
|
2004
|
12
|
5
|
41.7%
|
4
|
33.3%
|
|
2005
|
12
|
3
|
25.0%
|
3
|
25.0%
|
|
2006
|
14
|
4
|
28.6%
|
4
|
28.6%
|
|
2007
|
179
|
23
|
12.8%
|
44
|
24.6%
|
|
2008
|
0
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
|
2009
|
12
|
2
|
16.7%
|
2
|
16.7%
|
|
2010
|
0
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
|
2011
|
5
|
4
|
80.0%
|
0
|
0
|
|
2012
|
0
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
|
2013
|
10
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
|
Total
|
320
|
60
|
18.8%
|
72
|
22.5%
|
Based on the information available, the average time taken to process an appeal, from the date of submission of an appeal to the date the appeal was closed, was 20.4 months. For some of these appeals the landowners were notified of the outcome but the appeal was not marked as closed within the Department until some time later. This brings up the figure for the average time taken to process an appeal.
In the reply to Parliamentary Question No. 239 of 15 November 2018 it was set out that the number of appeals, in relation to sites proposed for designation as special areas of conservation, submitted to my Department in 2013 was 1. Due to an administrative error in the compilation of this information in the short time available marine site appeals were inadvertently excluded and the figure should have been 55.
