Locals will benefit from €20m fund if incinerator goes ahead

DUBLIN City Council is proposing to give more than €20m to local community projects if proposals for a new incinerator are given the go-ahead.

On the first day of the oral hearing into the proposal to grant a waste licence to the council by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Matt Twomey, Dublin City Council's assistant city manager, said a community gain fund would be established to support facilities and services for the Poolbeg and general catchment areas.

The €20.5m would consist of a lump payment of €8m and subsequent payments of €500,000 every year for 25 years -- the duration of the operational period of the plant.

Mr Twomey said the facility would thermally treat up to 600,000 tonnes of waste annually.

Last year the council was granted permission by An Bord Pleanala to build the incinerator. It must secure a licence from the EPA to run the plant.

Local people opposed to incineration cited brain tumours and cancer among the illnesses suffered by residents in the area as a result of ongoing pollution in Ringsend, Sandymount and Irishtown.

'Soft touch'

John Hawkins, a member of St Patrick's Rowing Club in Ringsend, told the oral hearing the area has been seen as a "soft touch" by the council over the years.

"We've had to put up with cement dust, sewage smell and 3,000-4,000 trucks rumbling through our streets and now Dublin City Council wants to give us a bonus -- an incinerator," he said.

Mr Hawkins said that eight members of his rowing club had died from cancer in recent years, adding that an incinerator would exacerbate the poor air quality in the area.

"The age limit of these people getting cancer is getting younger and younger and we feel it's directly down to the after effects of bio-burning in the area. We need to protect the children of Dublin by not granting this licence."

Another resident Siobhan Wyndall also said that if the proposed incinerator is given the go ahead, it will see 30,000 more trucks on the roads in Dublin South East on an annual basis.

The oral hearing was told that a report commissioned by Dublin Port and carried out by Dr Imelda Shanahan, one of Europe's most distinguished bio-scientists, concluded that a new incinerator for Poolbeg would have the effect of polluting the local air with a cocktail of poisonous gases and smog. The hearing continues today.

Louise Healy
Irish Independent

www.buckplanning.ie