Construction work has started on the Greg Norman-designed £12.5 million golf course at Doonbeg, Co Clare, despite £2.4 million in EU funding having still to be approved.
Machinery moved on to the site after the developers, Irish National Golf Club Ltd, submitted a management plan for protecting the 2 mm snail, Vertigo Angustior, and the adjacent proposed Special Area of Conservation to Clare County Council.
A council spokesman confirmed last week that the developers had complied with all predevelopment conditions, thus allowing work to get under way.
Duchas, the heritage service, has stated that the management plan is acceptable.
A European Commission source said, however, that the Commission was still studying its position in relation to funding, adding that a decision would be made before the end of the year.
But a spokesman for Shannon Development, promoters of the plan, said the project had fulfilled all the environmental criteria and everything was now in order to draw down the £2.4 million EU funding.
Last month Dublin Green Party MEP Ms Patricia McKenna called for the funding to be withdrawn following the publication of a previously unpublished report into the presence of Vertigo Angustior.
