The Department for Economy knew about a mine collapse that risked lives at Flintridge Resource’s Northern Ireland mine before renewing the firm’s prospecting licence for the area in October.
Flintridge Resources Ltd, which is owned by Canadian company Galantas Gold, operates Cavanacaw gold mine on Upper Botera Road outside Omagh, Co Tyrone.
It was there that 150 tonnes of falling rock missed a worker in an underground shaft by two metres after what a judge described as “too many explosives” being set off on July 9, 2018.
Read more: Omagh gold mine operators fined after workers escape injury in mine collapse
Underground collapses continued and on midnight between July 10 and 11 a roadway gave way leaving an excavation vehicle partly lodged in a sink hole with the driver having to escape through a broken window.
Water subsequently began to fill sections of the mine where two men were working but able to escape.
It was estimated that 860,000 litres of water entered the underground mine within an hour leaving it fully submerged.
Flintridge was recently fined £120,000 over serious failings at Dungannon Crown Court following an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive NI.
Court reporting from the Impartial Reporter outlined how Judge Sherrard said: “Beyond any shadow of doubt, this case involves high culpability. The company failed to put measures in place of recognised standards within the industry and failed to take appropriate action when the matter first arose, allowing breaches to subsist over a number of days. Corners were cut.”
HSE NI principal inspector, Brian Pryce, said following the conviction: “The failure of the mine operator to ensure suitable measures were put in place resulted in employees being exposed to unnecessary risk which could have resulted in fatalities.”
Flintridge currently operates one mine in Northern Ireland but the company also has two prospecting licences which cover a large part of Tyrone and some of Fermanagh.
The licences allow the firm to survey, assess, dig trenches, pits, take rock samples, drill, trial mine, do assaying and chemical analysis without ever having to do an environmental impact assessment or get planning permission despite potential environment and biodiversity impacts.
We asked the Northern Ireland Department for the Economy if the company’s now tainted health and safety record was taken into consideration before reissuing their lapsed licence.
A Department for the Economy spokesperson said: “The Department was aware of the health and safety issues as cited and given the size of the sector it was likely this would have been shortly after the incident.
“Following a consultation period ahead of awarding the licence, the Department was satisfied it should be awarded.”
Fermanagh and Omagh District Council opposed the licence before it was approved by DE. Cllr Emmet McAleer told us: “If they [Department for Economy] were aware of all the facts at what point does awarding [prospecting licences] become an issue.
“It’s not just a perception that there’s consistently a presumption in favour of awarding these things despite what they term consultation.
“It seems to be a complete tick box exercise because it doesn’t matter how many objections they get from local people or across the board or what statutory bodies object - they are inclined to award them regardless.
“You would wonder what countenance is given to objections or health and safety issues - they just proceed regardless.”
Flintridge Resources also has prospecting licences from Ireland’s Department for the Environment, Climate and Communications which give them access to just over 200km2 across 47 of Co Leitrim’s townlands for the next six years.
Ireland’s Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications told us environmental impact assessments are not required for exploration “activities such as geological mapping, geochemical and geophysical surveys, chemical analysis etc” in the south but are required for "projects likely to have significant effects on the environment”.
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