THERE is still no timescale for the resumption of the public inquiry into controversial plans to open a gold mine in the North which could potentially impact cross-border waterways including the River Finn in Donegal.

The proposed gold mine will be located outside Greencastle within Fermanagh and Omagh District Council.

The inquiry got underway in January at the Strule Arts Centre in Omagh but came to an abrupt halt within days when it emerged the Irish government were not notified about transboundary issues.

A submission by Donegal-based environmental consultancy group Defending Environmental Wealth (DEW) brought to light an issue that halted a long-awaited public inquiry into a hugely controversial plan for a large underground goldmine in Tyrone.

The groundbreaking submission highlighted “transboundary issues” not considered, which cited the potential impact the goldmine could have on cross-border waterways including the River Finn which runs along the borders of counties Tyrone and Donegal and the River Foyle and Foyle Basin in Derry.

North American company Dalradian has applied to mine gold, silver, copper, tellurium and other minerals in the Sperrin Mountains, which is an area of outstanding natural beauty.

However, there was major opposition with some 47,000 objections filed against the application.

In September 2021, the Minister for Infrastructure determined that the planning applications for the Goldmine Project should be robustly scrutinised in a public forum.

Accordingly, the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) requested that a Public Local Inquiry be held by the Planning Appeals Commission (PAC).

DfI Roads and the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) are dealing with related consents, namely the application to abandon the Crockanboy Road and the Discharge Consent and Abstraction Licence applications respectively, also caused public local inquiries under their own specific legislation.

The PAC, decided that, in the interests of efficiency, that it would hear these in conjunction with the planning applications.

In its initial application from 2017, Dalradian had proposed using cyanide in the mining process, then amended this in 2019 removing this as method of extraction.

A representative for Dalradian said ‘there was absolutely no intention of using cyanide’.

It has remained suspended since then and at a recent meeting of the council’s Regeneration and Community Committee where director Sinead McEvoy informed members there has been correspondence between the parties and DfI are to supply the necessary information on the transboundary issues by June 20.

Alliance councillor Stephen Donnelly asked if there was a ‘rough idea for a timescale potentially’ for the inquiry being reconvened.

Ms McEvoy replied, “At this stage I don’t have a timeline. I’m conscious that the next step for the PAC would be the mid-inquiry which was referred to at the pause point.”