Following the statement made on February 21st, by the former Minister for Justice, Mr. Michael McDowell, that the proposed Incinerator on the Poolbeg had collapsed, there was a flurry of claims and counter claims.

Eventually the Minister for the Environment, Mr. Dick Roche, made an extremely robust assertion that his project for disposing of the waste of Dublin, Greater Dublin, parts of Kildare and Wicklow would see it all go into the furnaces of the plant on the Poolbeg.

Minister Roche further informed waste operators that they will have to send all their waste, other than that which is extracted for recycling at present, to the incinerator. This indicates there will be another 300,000 tons of rubbish brought through the streets to be burned.

The confusion appears to have arisen as the company, Elsam that had been the private partner, became absorbed into another company Danish Oil and Natural Gas, DONG. Dublin City Council has asserted that the project is certainly going ahead even if they have to restart the procurement process of getting another private operator to build and run the Incinerator.

On the evening of Wednesday 11th April the Combined Residents Against Incineration, CRAI, held a meeting in Clanna Gael Fontenoy to rally the troops for an oral hearing that began in Croke Park on the 19th April by An Board Pleanála.

Frances Corr, the Chairperson of CRAI, said that she hoped that the Inspector would see sense and direct the Board to stop the proposed incinerator after 10 years of objections. Rory Hearne of the People before Profit Alliance said that his group were there to represent concerns regarding the health, traffic and unsustainability of bringing 600,000 tons of rubbish down to the Poolbeg for burning.

Three long weeks of highly technical hearings took place before Mr. Padraig Thornton, an Inspector from An Bord Pleanála, saw representatives of CRAI led by Frances Corr. The Sandymount and Merrion Residents’ Association and concerned people from the community put up an incredible fight against the 29 high-profile experts retained by Dublin City Council.

The hearing began in Croke Park, and after an adjournment to allow the residents to consider the foot-high pile of new technical paperwork, the hearing resumed in the Gresham Hotel where it finished. The outcome will now await the Inspector’s recommendations and the final decision of the Board, expected to take several months, given the sheer volume of evidence.

Much debate centred on evidence given regarding potential air pollution and consequent fall-out of hazardous chemicals. Local resident Joe McCarthy, a consulting engineer, demonstrated errors in the calculations carried out by the DCC expert. He was strongly supported by Dr. Imelda Shanahan, appearing on behalf of the Dublin Port Company, who cast doubt on the validity of the computer models used and, using more appropriate ‘models’, predicted levels of deposition that, in many cases, exceeded the permissible limits.

If these results are accepted then the foundation for much of the other expert evidence must fall, in which case it would be hard to see how the proposal could be accepted. There were also clear conflicts and omissions between the statements of the local experts and those of the Danish engineers who are, at present, the preferred suppliers of the plant, though no contract has been placed and commercial negotiations are, of course, shrouded in secrecy.

Maurice Bryan a witness for the CRAI, told ‘NewsFour’ that “It may be that many people still don’t realise that the incinerator building, if it went ahead, would have a bigger footprint than Croke Park and be higher than Liberty Hall, with two chimneys higher than the ‘Spire’. Construction would last for nearly three years and go on for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with wide and heavy loads being specially carried at night to avoid traffic congestion!

“This would be a great treat for the Council to give to the community. Let us hope that the dedicated work of your representatives over the 17 days proves to be enough to prevent this monstrous intrusion.”

What our public representatives have to say

I asked Chris Andrews T.D., Fianna Fáil, how he squared up to being a candidate in Dublin South East who is against the Incinerator yet his party Minister for the Environment wants it and he said “I have no problem with this and it was just politics, I’m here to work with CRAI and will do what I can to stop it.”

Councillor Daithí Doolan of Sinn Féin said that “the proposal to build an Incinerator on the Poolbeg peninsula area flies against any rational thinking. At a time when the world is facing massive climate change and global warming we have a planning proposal that will emit a further 600,000 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide and bring hundreds of trucks back onto Dublin’s city centre on a daily basis.”

John Gormley T.D., Green Party, said that “Incineration is government policy and that this could be a major factor in deciding the outcome. In Dublin South East we have a situation where the Minister is saying he is against incineration but the government is for it.” He said he hoped An Board Pleanála would listen and say no. John Gormley said that a facility to burn 600,000 tons a year made it a mass burn operation. Other options for waste disposal should be adopted such as mechanical and biological treatment which he said was a better way.

Ruairí Quinn T.D., Labour, said that residents in the area had already the experience of the sewage works which is a public/ private partnership project that has malfunctioned from day one: “Whatever about getting a bad smell up your nose if the incinerator doesn’t work properly or doesn’t commission itself properly God knows what we’re going to get into our ingestion systems and that is a genuine fear particularly for mothers with small children.”

City Councillor Dermot Lacey, Labour, included in his submission the argument that “As a City Council we have just spent several hundred million euro in cleaning up Dublin Bay. Through the imaginative intervention of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority the wider immediate area is being redeveloped and a major residential development of the Poolbeg area is on the way. To locate this incinerator with the consequential daily movement of several hundred trucks through the narrow streets of the area is, in my view, sheer planning madness.”