Destruction of cyanide postponed

THE PROPOSED destruction today of 15kg of hydrogen cyanide in the Wicklow mountains is understood to have been postponed.

South Dublin County Council had been approached by pest control company Rentokil in April 2007 about the destruction of its stock of hydrogen cyanide in seven canisters.

Local Labour TD Liz McManus called in the Dáil for the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, to "halt this crazy plan" to destroy the cyanide in west Wicklow and "to introduce legislation to deal properly with this issue".

She insisted that it was "madness" to transport the chemical on a "small country road with poor surfacing and potholes". If cylinders "are disturbed in transit they are prone to explosion".

Ms McManus and local Fine Gael TD Billy Timmins expressed concern at the plan to dispose of the chemical at Manor Kilbride, and said that "the lack of consultation has fuelled anxiety among local people and generated considerable alarm".

She said yesterday that she had written to the county manager for the proposed destruction date because "we are not being told" when the chemical, once used as an agricultural poison, would be disposed of.

In the Dáil debate Ms McManus said that "concentration of 300mg of the gas in air would kill a person within a few minutes" and "it was reportedly used in death camps in Nazi Germany and more recently in the genocide of the Kurds".

It is understood two dates are being considered, one for the removal of the chemical from the company's site to west Wicklow and a second for its destruction, but there are concerns about "risk assessment".

The Ballymount industrial estate storage location is in the constituency of Minister of State Conor Lenihan, who told the Dáil that "the Minister for the Environment has no function in this regard", but the department had "written to the council requesting that it considers the steps it can take to ensure an appropriate resolution of this matter by Rentokil".

Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea also told Ms McManus that South Dublin County Council was the "lead agency" in dealing with the issue. The Defence Forces had been asked to "provide a site and provide explosives to be used in the destruction of the material".

Ms McManus said it was astounding that the transport and disposal of such material had been kept secret from the public. No licence had been issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, "no risk assessment has been published and there has been no public consultation with residents or public representatives".