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Dublin City Council’s decision to go ahead with the construction of Poolbeg incinerator is likely to result in legal action, Minister for the Environment John Gormley has said.

The council today said it would be starting construction of the 600,000 tonne incinerator in just over two weeks time, a move described by Mr Gormley as “most unwise” and “foolhardy”.

Speaking on RTÉ radio, Mr Gormley said it was likely that he would introduce a cap on incineration which would limit the facility to burning just half its annual waste capacity.

“Where I make legal changes, in other words if I impose a cap on incineration, they have to abide by that. In my view it makes sense to impose the cap on incineration and under those circumstances they should be building an incinerator which is no more than 300,000 tonnes.”