21.04.2016

Crane rental company threatened

An Irish crane rental company, has pulled its equipment out of a wind farm site after receiving serious and credible threats from a group trying to disrupt the business that owns the wind farm.

The company, East Cork Crane Hire, was helping with maintenance work on two of the 26 turbines at the Slieve Rushen wind farm on the Cavan-Fermanagh border, when the owner Aidan Kelleher, was warned to remove his equipment or it would be “burnt to the ground”.

In case he doubted the seriousness of the threat he was ‘invited’ to a face to face meeting, where he was handed a list of all the equipment that his company had on site, and was told: “We are serious, we are very good at this, and do a good job.” Faced with the threat, Kelleher decided to pull out of the job, because he was not prepared to put his employees in danger.

The wind farm is operated by a company that was previously owned by businessman Seán Quinn who has gone through a bankruptcy, and having been discharged is trying to buy it back. It is believed that those making the threats are trying to disrupt this.
The police are investigating
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East Cork Crane Hire was obliged to pull its equipment off site in order to ensure the safety of its employees