A MEATH company has applied for a total of 18 prospecting licences for many townlands in West Cork to investigate the potential of these areas for gold, silver copper, base metals and barytes.
Aurum Discovery, with an address in Kells, is seeking the granting of a prospecting licence from the geoscience regulation office within the Department of the Environment to cover parts of Carbery West and East.
Last week the Geoscience Regulation Office of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications took out two ads in The Southern Star to inform the public of their intention to grant a prospecting licence.
Townlands involved include Aghaville, Letterlicky East and Skeaghanore East and West, outside Skibbereen, among many more.
A spokesperson for the Department confirmed to The Southern Star that Aurum Discovery has applied for a total of 18 prospecting licences in West Cork.
‘As the average prospecting licence area (PLA) in Ireland covers an area of approximately 35 sq kms, the application for 18 extends over a substantial number of townlands,’ said the
spokesperson.
‘It is important to emphasise that prospecting licences are not mining licences. Prospecting licences only permit the company to undertake exploration activities such as geological mapping, geochemical sampling and ground geophysical surveys.’
The spokesperson added that these activities are temporary and involve ‘minimal disturbance’, and that no mining is permitted to take place under a prospecting licence.
In the past decade or so, prospecting licences have previously been granted over several tracts of West Cork, primarily to explore for copper, they added.
Any mining would require additional consents from a number of different agencies, including the planning permission from the relevant local authority as well as licences from the Environment Protection Agency (EPA).
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Aurum Discovery said the aim of the project is to investigate the potential of the licensed area to host economic copper mineralisation.
‘Copper has been identified as a strategic raw material in line with the EU Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA 20024) and as such work is ongoing in many EU member states to assess their potential to host minerals classified as “strategic” or “critical”,’ they said.
The spokesperson added that the areas covered under the prospecting licence applications were selected based on the geological setting of West Cork.
‘The area has a long history of copper production, but to be clear, the licences applied for allow only exploration work to be carried out. There are no specific plans for any particular area at this point,’ they said.
Submissions regarding the granting of the licence should be made within 30 days of the date of last week’s notice.
Submissions can be made by either posting them to the Geoscience Regulation Office, Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, Tom Johnson House, Haddington Road, Dublin, D04K7X4 or by using the online submissions form at gov.ie/gsroSubmissions.
