LAST UPDATE | 13 hrs ago

AN BORD PLEANÁLA has approved planning permission for a gas power plant in Co Kerry.

The proposed power plant would be located on a 630-acre site between Tarbert and Ballylongford.

The planning application from American-owned company Shannon LNG Ltd application sought permission to build a power plant with three turbine halls, each of which would include two gas turbines with generators and two heat recovery steam generators with 35-metre tall exhaust stacks. It also proposed a 120-megawatt hour battery energy storage system.

In a statement today, Kerry TD and Minister for Children Norma Foley said she welcomed “An Bord Pleanála’s decision to grant planning permission for a 600 MW power plant on the Shannon Estuary and for a 220kV electricity connection cable to connect the power plant to the grid”.

“The land bank in Tarbert has been ripe for development for many decades,” Foley said.

“The granting of planning permission for this project has the potential to bring significant employment opportunities to the area.”

Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher has also welcomed the decision, calling it an “important milestone in ensuring Irish energy security into the future”.

“Too much time has been wasted over the last 16 years to get to this point. If planning permission had been granted at the start; the facility would have been operational over a year ago,” Kelleher said.

Many local and environmentalist groups, however, have for years resisted development of natural gas or Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) infrastructure in Ireland.

They argue that it could pave the way for bringing fracked gas into Ireland and lock Ireland into fossil fuel infrastructure at a time when the country needs to be reducing its greenhouse gas emissions for the sake of the climate and environment.

Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman said that the decision “represents further evidence of the retreat from pro-climate policies that is being led by the new Government”.

He said he is “concerned that the decision, while solely permitting a power station, leaves open the question of how that station will be fuelled going forward”.

“My worry is that the commercial operator who has received permission today is going to come back later and seek permission for specific LNG infrastructure, like a regasification system, once the new Government has further rolled back restrictions on LNG that had been put in place by the last Government,” O’Gorman said.

Other opposition parties including Labour and People Before Profit have also criticised the move.

Jerry MacEvilly, acting campaigns director at Friends of the Earth, said that “long-term use of polluting, expensive gas, not supporting energy security or our climate obligations”.

MacEvilly added that the group has “major concerns that ABP’s decision in this case, far from supporting climate action, will actively undermine achievement of our climate obligations”.