Our running total of donations has been updated to include €2000 raised in Schull at the launch of the Save Our Skibbereen CD – we have raised €34,904 as of today. Our thanks to everyone involved in achieving this remarkable amount in a short few months.
Our CD is on sale throughout Skibbereen and Ballydehob. If anyone would like to stock it, please get in touch. It can also be purchased online at Save Our Skibbereen CD
Our Judicial Review is underway in the courts as our application was granted. There will be more court dates, the next is early April, that will involve legalities on either side in preparation for a full hearing of the case. A full hearing might not happen for another 6-9 months. We will update you all as we find out ourselves. We leave legal matter to the experts and rely on their advice for how to communicate.
Our campaign’s focus will be on raising awareness, raising funds and publicizing any fund-raisers that are happening through us or through the generosity of volunteers.
If you would like to help raise money but don’t know how – do get in touch and we can help.
The next events are:
1. Hungry Hill Climb, March 31st – The Skibbereen Luncheon Club have generously decided to share the proceeds of this sponsored climb with us. You can contact us for details on how to sponsor climbers.
2. Darina Allen & Rory O’Connell’s Cookery Demonstration at The West Cork Hotel on Thursday, May 23rd.
See our website for tickets or purchase them directly at our stall in the Skibbereen Market or at The Riverside Café on North Street. All proceeds from that event will go to the campaign. Darina & Rory are incredibly supportive, and we hope to get a huge crowd that night.
We expect the plastic factory to be an important issue in the upcoming Local and European Elections. This factory is symptomatic of long-term decisions being rushed through without thought, without proper public consultation and without due consideration of the democratic responsibilities that all public bodies and politicians should adhere to. We hope that people think long and hard about who they want representing West Cork’s future.
To put a paltry number of jobs over and above the health of the local population is beyond irresponsible.
To prioritize the income of a privately-owned US Plastic Company over the income of all the local jobs dependent on our environment is beyond belief.
To stain the brand of ‘West Cork’ & ‘Skibbereen’ with a Plastic Factory currently is a form of negative and destructive advertising. The importance of the environment in news coverage is only going to increase. The media attention on plastic is only going to increase. We cannot be known as a destination that chose a Plastic Factory in 2018, 2019 or 2020. Our environment is what sells our food, our drink, and our tourism. It is our most valuable resource and any damage we do to it is just damage done to ourselves.
The environment is not some fashionable cause, it is the cause of life – it is the air we breathe – it is the food we eat – it is the water we drink. That this is not obvious is perhaps the greatest illusion of these times.
To see school-children strike, both locally, nationally and internationally, is to know that we are faced with existential choices that will have a deep and lasting effect on the health of all generations, now and in the future. That our politicians in power are slow to see the challenges ahead is deeply disappointing and points to a need for new voices or for old ones to change completely their current direction. It is why it has fallen on all of us to fight this ourselves and you all have risen to that challenge. You have donated to, supported, and made this campaign what it is today.
We face decades of pollution, decades of environmental degradation – lost decades – if this factory goes ahead. Our campaign is a long and difficult and costly process. But if we do not fight this in the courts, we will lose much more, and it will be lost until another generation takes up this challenge. That should not happen.
We know enough to do better, and we are educated enough to know better.
We need your continued support, your fundraising help and your donations if you can make them. This is an investment in all our futures. It is a long road. We’ve come a long way to get here and we have a long way still to go.
Spring has sprung and so must we all so that Summer is not far behind.