THE ECONOMIC and Social Research Institute (ESRI) is re-examining its report endorsing Dublin City Council’s controversial plan for a municipal waste incinerator on the Poolbeg peninsula after admitting that it contains a number of errors.
But Prof Richard Tol, senior environmental specialist with the institute, denied that the report, An Economic Approach to Municipal Waste Management Policy in Ireland, was being "withdrawn" – as claimed in a Sunday newspaper yesterday. When the report was published last week, Prof Tol said the ESRI had been made aware of a number of errors in it.
“We are investigating these and assessing what they mean for the main conclusions. But so far we haven’t found anything shocking.”
He said Dr Dominic Hogg, of British consultants Eunomia, who had carried out an international review of best waste management practice commissioned by Minister for the Environment John Gormley, was to write a letter outlining “further errors”.
"As soon as we have examined these claims, we will issue a statement," Prof Tol told The Irish Times."We are are in the middle of doing this, so it's premature to say what the outcome will be, but we will probably issue an erratum or amendment."
One of the acknowledged errors in the report was its statement that emissions from the Poolbeg incinerator would be covered by the European Emissions Trading Scheme. While admitting that this was wrong, Prof Tol said the ESRI “fully stands by the conclusions” of its report, which found that there was “no underlying rationale” for the Minister’s strategy to put incineration at a disadvantage to other waste treatment methods.
On RTÉ's The Week in Politicslast night, Mr Gormley said Dublin City Council had "gone about this in a very slapdash way" and had used the ESRI in an effort to "undermine the international review which I commissioned".
He added: “The fact is that the ESRI review has now been found to be deficient.” If the council or Covanta wanted to talk to him, “my door is open. Indeed, if the ESRI want to come into me and talk about how their report has been misleading and not based on the facts, again my door is open.”
Brendan Keane, spokesman for the Irish Waste Management Association (IWMA), which opposes the Poolbeg project, said it was “inconsequential whether the ESRI report is being withdrawn or re-examined” because its findings had been “seriously undermined”.
When the report was published last Wednesday, the association highlighted errors: “The IWMA believes that the report is fundamentally flawed, and that the ESRI has serious questions to answer about the data used in this report.”
It called for the “complete cessation of works” at Poolbeg to allow for a “thorough examination of all aspects of the project, including the terms of the contract, the size of the facility, and the extraordinary level of monies that have been spent so far”.
Mr Gormley will this week appoint an “authorised officer” to examine the September 2007 contract between Dublin City Council and its partners in the project – Covanta Energy, from the US, and Dong Energy, from Denmark.