This fundraiser is being driven by a group of parents, Pelletstown Educate Together National School (PETNS) and the wider community who are opposed to the development of an 18 meter mobile phone mast directly beside the school.

Objective

We have applied to the High Court for a judicial review to overturn the decision by An Bord Pleanála (ABP) to grant eir permission to build the mast. We need to pay for legal fees for a solicitor and barrister plus the cost of an expert to provide an opinion that the location of the mast beside the school is unsuitable, given how long students and staff spend there.

At a minimum we will need to reach a target of €15,000 to cover legal fees, while we may need to raise more for an expert opinion and testimony as part of the process. We need to reach a target of €6,500 in the short term, to meet payment commitments.

We know Christmas is not an ideal time of year to ask for funds, but even a small donation would help, and it would be super if you can contribute more later if your situation allows.

Also, the more you can spread the word the better. If we could get 400 families to contribute, the average amount we would need each person to contribute would be €30.

If we are successful in the judicial review we may get our legal costs covered, in which case we would refund everyone who contributed on a proportionate basis.

Timelines

We lodged our application for judicial review on 13 December and the process could take well over a year before it reaches a conclusion.

We will provide updates along the way, including if we need to increase our target to fund our expert opinion and testimony.

Background

eir wants to install an 18 metre mobile phone mast within our community in Dublin 15, and directly beside PETNS. The mast would be 12.5 meters from the school grounds and between 40 and 65 meters away from school buildings and yards. It’s antennae would be less than 7 meters above the rooftop yard.

We have objected to this through the various stages of the planning process since October 2023 (DCC ref 4643/23, ABP ref 313900-24). In October, ABP turned down our appeal of the decision by Dublin City Council to approve the development of the proposed mast. However, while the board of ABP granted permission to eir, the Inspector who reviewed the case proposed its rejection on a number of grounds.

During this process, we also suggested a more suitable site where eir could position the mast where it would be away from the school and homes, but that suggestion has been ignored.

This GoFundMe page was created at the end of October to raise an initial €1,500 to fund a legal assessment to determine if there was strength in taking our case to the courts. The community was amazing and we exceeded our target within one day!

Other ways you can support us

Sign our petition here!

Follow us on social media #notopelletstownmast

Facebook - No to Pelletstown Mast!

X - @NoToPtMast

TikTok - @notopelettstownmast

Bluesky - @notoptmast.bsky.social

Further information

As well as the links to the DCC and ABP information earlier, you can also see: