CRAI are still campaigning
In the Reduce Reuse Recycle campaign that appears on television featuring celebrity gardener Diarmuid Gavin, one of the ads features a steel drum with burning refuse. The voiceover speaks out against the burning of waste material and of the harm it can cause the environment and the harm it can cause us, “the burning of waste causes dangerous dioxins (airborne particulates) to be released into the air which cause damage to the environment so you shouldn’t do it.” etc etc.

Yet it looks like the construction of a mass-burning facility or incinerator is to go ahead on the Poolbeg Peninsula to do just that, burn waste material and inevitably cause harm to the environment and presumably to those living nearby.

CRAI (Combined Residents Against Incinerator) is the local group who are campaigning to put a stop to the incinerator. On March 28th at the Clann Na nGael Club in Ringsend they held a public meeting. Attending were all the local politicians representing their parties along with around 250 local residents.

What was glaringly apparent at the meeting was that nobody, not a single soul, including the local Fianna Fáil man was for or knew anyone who was for the construction of an incinerator. So the question is who in the name of all that is holy was or is in favour of the building of the thing?

At the meeting there was much mention of PPPs (Public Private Partnerships). These are partnerships between the government and private companies. The government gives out contracts to private companies for them to provide a public service. In this case of waste management the building of this incinerator has gone to a Danish subsidiary, Elsam Engineering Ltd.

Chris Andrews (FF), Senator Mary White (FF), Conor McQuaid (PD), Ruairi Quinn (Lab), Kevin Humphreys (Lab), Dermot Lacey (Lab), Dathai Doolan (SF), Lucinda Creighton (FG), Richard Boyd Barrett (SWP), Ruairi Ahern (PBPA) and John Gormley were among those present.

During the meeting all the local politicians as well as the local residents were given a chance to take the floor and speak briefly about the issue. What follows is a selection of the speakers and some of what was said:

Ruairi Quinn (Labour)
“I oppose the incinerator for three reasons. The first is that Dublin Bay is the most populated Bay on this island and it doesn’t make sense to place an incinerator right in the middle of it. The second is the volume of traffic that it’s going to generate in order to feed it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The third is because it’s a Public Private Partnership and I don’t trust the ability of the private sector to run in it a manner that would be safe and efficient for us.”

John Gormley (Green Party)
“I think at this stage… an incinerator should not go ahead unless there was proper access. And access is the problem here because we’re going to have 800 truck journeys to and fro, that’s the problem. So I have to say I will work day and night to stop it (the incinerator) because I truly believe this is a terrible thing for this community.”

Senator Mary White (Fianna Fáil)
“No incinerator should be built on a cul de sac (the Poolbeg peninsula); it should be built on a ring road.”

There followed immediate vocal disagreement from some over this proposal for a ring road.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Socialist Workers Party)
“Ultimately this is an issue of democracy. Whether the people of this area should decide what happens in this area or unaccountable people should force things on us. You have to ask your local politicians are you for this or against it. The local representatives must be held responsible even for their colleagues in Dáil Éireann. Name and shame politicians who don’t give clear commitments or commend those that do.”

Councillor Kevin Humphreys (Labour)
‘Labour to a man have voted every single time against the incinerator. They want to put the incinerator beside the sewage plant to burn the sludge which at the moment is being sent down to Carlow by the ton. The incinerator is not acceptable to anyone in this community. Labour will continue to oppose it.”

Lucinda Creighton (Fine Gael)
“The development of this incinerator is very much on track, the process has started. There is serious financial incentive to burn as much as possible. Anyone who tells you that this is part of an environmentally friendly, well meaning, well motivated policy of the government or Dublin County Council to reduce waste in the city are effectively lying to you because this is a money-making operation. It’s a Public Private Partnership designed to make money for the company who have been awarded the contract. It’s not in the interest of the citizens of Dublin.”

Councillor Dermot Lacey (Labour)
“The proposal to build an incinerator here first emerged in 1998 at a city council meeting. I opposed it then and I oppose it now. The decision to locate an incinerator at the heart of this community, at the heart of the city is quite simply the wrong decision. This is a political issue. The city manager and three separate ministers of the environment have let it through. This incinerator has been imposed on this community by Dick Roche, Martin Cullen and Noel Dempsey. This is not acceptable to the people or the community or to me."

Dáithí Doolin (Sinn Féin)
“The incinerator is not an electric kettle, it’s a mass burn facility that needs to be going 24/7. A cross-party coalition is the only way to stop the incinerator. This incinerator is not an act of God, it’s not by coincidence, it’s a political decision made by people who are unaccountable to the people in this room. We must win; we have to win, for our future, for our children’s future.”

Ruairi Ahern (People before Profit Alliance)
“To the Elsam group who have been contracted to operate the incinerator for 20 years it is worth one billion euro. We, the public, are paying for the incinerator by paying increased waste charges so if you think about it we are paying to poison ourselves. There are many problems with Public Private Partnerships such as the issue of safety of public services provided through PPPs. Through a sustained campaign of community power and organisation and protest we can defeat this incinerator.”

Chris Andrews (Fianna Fáil)
“I am just as concerned as you are. I will give you my support, if you don’t want to take it you don’t have to.”

This speaker had difficulty addressing the crowd because a member of the audience during Andrews’s address continued asking the politician for his resignation. The audience member was doubtful if Andrews was actually against the incinerator. Mr. Andrews said he was against it and regarding his possible resignation he replied that that would not happen.

A local activist (Progressive Democrats)
“The city manger has the power to put it through. I think a lot of effort should be put into fundraising and building the case against it.”

On hearing this a woman from the audience became exasperated. “But we’ve already done that!” There followed an exchange between the two until the silenced PD returned to his seat.

John Hawkins (A local man)
“I’m a resident of Ringsend and I’m very much involved in St. Patrick’s Rowing club. Our club is situated on the point where the previous incinerator was over at the Lough gates. In the last two years two young members have died of cancer. A lot of people might think it’s to do with other things but quite a few of our members now have children who have been born with little problems. I’m sure if they got someone to do a study they’d be shocked. We used to leave the boat upside down on the point and the dust from the original incinerator used to cover the boat. The boat was white with dust and every morning we had to wash it. We have first-hand information and experience of what it was like from the previous incinerator.”

(On the present government) “I feel robbed that they put leaflets in my home and I went and voted FF and I’m ashamed to say that I did.”

A local woman
“This incinerator is going to be filled with rubbish and it need not necessarily be Irish rubbish, it can come from other countries as well. They are building it to make money and they don’t care how they make it or how many people will die, or how much the cancer will increase. I was at a meeting a few years ago and I said that the previous incinerator had caused cancer in this area but no one listened.There is no democracy at all anymore. They do whatever they feel like doing to make money. It doesn’t matter what it is.”

John Cavendish (A local man)
“CRAI is not just against the incinerator but against incineration, that is very important. The politicians from the government parties, the PDs and Fianna Fáil are giving us nothing but lip service.”

On the other hand…
Dr Dieter Schrenk consultant to the World Health Organisation and the German Federal Environmental Agency believes that if a waste incinerator is properly managed and if controls are properly enforced there are no health risks for the surrounding community. He suggested that we should be asking questions about the levels of emissions so that the impact on local health can be accurately assessed.

Dr Hendrik Van Der Kamp, Head of Planning and Development in DIT Bolton Street and Senior Inspector with An Bord Pleanala said that most of the emphasis is on the inceration side of things, but such a plant would also be able to supply energy, which might be regarded as a positive outcome.

Frank McDonald, Environment Editor of The Irish Times, said that thermal treatment plants work very well and safely in other European countries but he felt that the same level of confidence in the authorities does not exist in Irish society.

The Environmental Protection Agency monitors emissions from plants around the country and if any of these emissions rise over the approved level, inspection teams are brought in.

The above is taken from the views of experts in the Record of Findings of the Ringsend CIG prepared by Mercator Marketing Research in October 2002.