*Kilkee.
OVER €77,000 has been raised to fund the legal challenge against a proposed wastewater treatment plant in Kilkee.
Among the most recent donations on the Save Kilkee Cliff Walk GoFund Me is €20,000 from the Harris family this week to strengthen the efforts to hold a judicial review in The High Court.
These donations have been listed as €5,000 from the ‘Richard Harris Estate’, €5,000 from Jared and Allegra Harris, €4,000 from Jamie, Bree, Cleo and Lily Harris, €3,000 from Damian, Ella and Marlowe Harris with another €3,000 from ‘the Harris family’.
Key personnel involved in the legal challenge when contacted by The Clare Echo on Wednesday afternoon were unable to verify exactly that the funds had been donated from the estate of the late actor or his family but pointed out that their names were listed beside the donation.
GoFundMe do not use a verification tool when accepting donations from members of the public.
At the beginning of April, organisers of the Save Kilkee Walk GoFundMe had said €50,000 was needed to contest in the High Court but the group currently has a target of €90,000.
Momentum is building behind the Save Kilkee Walk campaign and it is expected that the case will be before the High Court on June 15th or 17th.
Uisce Éireann lodged plans in January 2024 for the construction of a new wastewater treatment plant and foul pumping station in Fooghnagh, Kilkee. Over 80 objections were lodged against the proposed scheme for Dunlicky Road with locals angry over the proposed location and that Uisce Éireann was only proposing primary treatment of wastewater. Untreated wastewater from Kilkee is currently being discharged into the sea at Intrinsic Bay and the proposal aims to rectify this.
Clare County Council comprehensively rejected the plans in October 2024 and ruled that the scheme would have adverse impacts on the visual amenities of the area, the character of the receiving landscape, and the views available from the adjacent “Scenic Route” and recreational routes which are valuable tourism assets for Kilkee. The Council also refused planning permission after concluding that it has not been adequately demonstrated that the proposed development would be adequate to appropriately manage the effluent loading from Kilkee.
Adverse impacts on the residential amenities for a nearby existing dwelling due to overbearance and general disturbance were also cited by the Council in the decision. The planning authority also refused planning permission after stating that it could not be satisfied that the proposed development, either individually or in-combination with other plans or projects, would not be likely to have adverse effects on the Kilkee Reefs Special area of Conservation (SAC).
However last June, An Coimisún Pleanála overturned the Council’s decision and granted the green light for Uisce Éireann’s plans. In its grant of permission, the planning authority dismissed the recommendation of its own inspector to refuse planning permission. Philip Davis concluded that the scheme will have a substantially positive impact on water quality at Kilkee. However, Mr Davis recommended a refusal as the proposal by way of its location at a point highly visible from the Dunlicky Road would have an adverse effect on the visual amenities of the area, the character of the receiving landscape, and the views from the designated scenic route.
However, the appeals board stated that it did not share the view of its Inspector given that the extensive nature of the site and scale of the works would give rise to an adverse effect on the visual amenities of the area, the character of the receiving landscape, or the views from the designated scenic route at Dunlicky Road. The appeals board stated that it was satisfied that the development would not seriously injure the visual or residential amenities of the area or negatively impact on the landscape character or the tourism resource of the Kilkee.
Population numbers in Kilkee vary from 1,100 off-season to between 15,000 to 20,000 at the peak of the summer. Richard Harris who died in 2002 remains among the most well-known Kilkee residents. He spent many of his summers in Kilkee where he owned a holiday home and the Limerick City native achieved silverware in four successive summers in Kilkee from 1948-1951, winning the famed Tivoli cup. A statue in his honour was unveiled in 2006.
Clashes of viewpoints have been commonplace between Uisce Éireann and Kilkee locals over the past two years.
In a statement this week, Uisce Éireann said it has become aware of the GoFundMe page and that it “contains a significant level of misinformation, inaccuracies and is factually incorrect”. They said the Kilkee Cliff Walk will not be closed during the construction of the plant.
“The GoFundMe Page asserts that ‘the plant will be only primary treatment of sewage, meaning that solid matter is filtered from the sewage and shipped to Limerick by truck and treated or incinerated’. This is entirely incorrect. There is no proposal to take solid matter to Limerick and incinerate. Uisce Éireann does not operate a sludge incineration facility in Limerick. Uisce Éireann transports sludge from WWTPs to licenced facilities off-site which have the capacity to provide further treatment, and this will also be the standard procedure for Kilkee WWTP. It is not correct to say that ‘raw untreated effluent’ will be left over following primary treatment. Preliminary treatment in the form of screening and grit removal followed by primary treatment will result in highly treated effluent being discharged to the outfall at Intrinsic Bay. The Proposed Development will in fact ameliorate the current situation: at present unscreened untreated raw sewage is discharged to Intrinsic Bay from Kilkee town,” the statement added.
Details on outfall location and the dimensions of the site boundary to the Dunlicky Road were also incorrect, Uisce Éireann argued. “The virtual image of the proposed wastewater treatment plant, which appears on the GoFundMe Page, is inaccurate. Additionally, the scale of the image relative to the site in Kilkee is approximately ten times larger than the scale of the underlying aerial image, and is an entirely inaccurate representation of the scale of the WWTP. The image appearing on the GoFundMe Page excludes fencing and landscaping which is proposed by Uisce Éireann as part of the planning application for the WWTP”.
