The Irish Times

Minister for Environment Dick Roche has labelled it "fascist" and critics routinely attack it as a secret society run by "Dublin 4 snobs" who prevent rural people building family homes on their land. Environmental group An Taisce, it is fair to say, is not the most popular organisation in certain parts of Ireland. This month, it copperfastened a reputation as the country's most controversial voluntary body with its objection, since withdrawn, to a planning application by Irish Times columnist Fintan O'Toole to quadruple the size of his holiday home at Ballyvaughan, Co Clare. In describing the development proposed by O'Toole - a long-time defender of the organisation - as "criminal", the Clare branch of An Taisce managed to shoot the environmental movement in both feet, to the undisguised glee of its critics.