An Taisce has become the first Irish environmental organisation to be bankrolled by the Government - to the tune of at least £55,000 a year, according to its chairman, Mr Michael Smith.
The trust, which holds its annual general meeting in Dublin today, is using this annual grant from the Department of the Environment to fulfil its watchdog role as a prescribed body under the Planning Act.
The Government funding, which is used to defray the salaries of full-time staff, has enabled An Taisce to play an even more active role in the planning arena, making submissions on approximately 2,000 schemes.
"Our national profile is growing, we have created a worldclass Website, our production of policy is increasing and we are winning an astonishing twice as many appeals to An Bord Pleanala as we were two years ago," Mr Smith said.
Successes in the past year included blocking a 23-storey tower in Dublin's Smithfield, "obtrusive" ESB pylons in Co Donegal, a housing estate in the grounds of W.B. Yeats's last home in Rathfarnham, Dublin, and an "incongruous" marina in Co Leitrim.
"We also stopped a large number of one-off houses in the countryside," Mr Smith said. "We are increasingly opposing out-of-town business parks and commercial developments which do not provide mobility management plans."
In his chairman's report, he notes that An Taisce is now obtaining satisfactory results in 90 per cent of the 100 or so appeals it lodges. He says An Bord Pleanala "deserves enormous credit for taking seriously the notion of sustainable development".
An Taisce had also produced detailed policies on the National Spatial Strategy and the rural built environment as well as a critique of the last Budget.
But Mr Smith warns that An Taisce "still needs a multiple of its current funding if it is properly to address its vast remit in the public interest".
"It is my intention that the organisation should be in a position to recruit a chief executive by this time next year," he says. "We must move towards the standards of professionalism and dynamism which are challenging remit deserves."
The organisation's accounts for last year show an operating deficit of £23,000 - £11,000 more than 1999. However, this was offset by a general fund surplus of £61,000 and legacies amounting to £50,000, leaving a surplus of £88,000 at the end of the year.
An Taisce's total operating income for 2000 was £115,300. Membership subscriptions increased by 6 per cent to £61,900 for the year.
A further £39,000 was generated by project management and £7,100 by fundraising. Net current assets were put at £61,500.
