Ahern insists waste incineration is only option

Ireland will have to embrace incineration because it is no longer acceptable to export waste to other countries, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern said today.

Speaking while on a trade mission in China, Mr Ahern said he had to "convince people how we deal with waste, how it is not an acceptable thing in sustainable development to be exporting some of your waste to other countries."

Responding to criticisms of the slow rollout of National Development Plan (NDP) projects from the Institution of Engineers (IEI), the Taoiseach said he was concerned at the delays and the bottlenecks.

"We are spending five per cent of GDP on infrastructural development. That is more than anywhere else in Europe. It is probably more than anywhere else in the world."

"We are trying to catch-up on a backlog that was enormously deficient for several decades. I would like to have the power of the mayor [of Shanghai] . . . when he decides he wants to do a highway and bypass an area he just goes straight up and over.

"I know that's not going to happen at home. I would just like that when we are trying to put it on the ground that we get through the consultation problem as fast as possible."

The Minister for the Environment, Mr Roche also lent his support to incineration today saying it was a safer technology than landfill.

If the "alternative was an incinerator, well-sited and with modern technology, or yet another landfill, I would prefer the former." He said Ireland has to go the route of incinerator and it was "dishonest" to suggest we could avoid it.

Earlier this week the Minister confirmed that he was revising the Critical Infrastructure Bill which had been withdrawn following opposition from a number of ministers. The withdrawal of this Bill was one of the key criticisms in from the IEI.

The Bill was designed to speed up delivery of major public initiatives like motorways, incinerators and the proposed metro and is being "tweaked", according to the Department of the Environment.

Speaking on Todaywith Pat Kenny, Mr Roche referred to the well publicised opposition by the Minister for Justice to the proposed siting of an incinerator in his south Dublin constituency.

"He is not arguing the issue against incineration per se. He was arguing against a particular site. And I fully understand his position. Because if someone wanted to put an incinerator in my constituency in a place that I regarded as highly inappropriate naturally I would have something to say about it."

He acknowledged that the "IEI report was somewhat critical of progress on waste management projects but said that "people who are attuned to reality know this [incineration] is the way we have to go."