The Environmental Protection Agency's decision to grant a licence permitting a pharmaceut ical company to operate a hazardous waste incinerator in Co Clare was upheld by the High Court yesterday.
Ms Orla Ni Eili, of Harmony Row, Ennis, a member of the Clare Action Against Incineration Group, could now face a legal bill of up to £300,000 after losing her action against the EPA and Roche Ireland.
Roche had sought and secured from the EPA in December 1996 a licence to build the incinerator at its plant at Clarehill, Clarecastle, near Ennis. The EPA had received a large number of objections to the proposal from many local residents, farmers and fishermen. In a 56-page judgment yesterday, Mr Justice Lavan found there was a "proper rational basis" for the EPA's decision.
It was within the EPA's competence to determine that it had sufficient evidence regarding the proposed incinerator to allow for the granting of a licence.
Afterwards, Ms Ni Eili said she was surprised and disappointed at Mr Justice Lavan's decision.
The judgment, she said, "revealed a weakness in the law which allowed the EPA to license a toxic waste incinerator in the heart of a village despite all the concerns of the locals".
Mr Justice Lavan said Roche Ireland was a subsidiary of the Swiss group Hoffman La Roche. As a result of the implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1994 the company was obliged to apply for a pollution control licence.
In 1995 it applied for a licence to allow for the operation of a hazardous waste incinerator at its Clarecastle premises. This was to reduce atmospheric emissions of volatile organic substances by 95 per cent. The proposal would entail an increase of less than 1 per cent in the background dioxin levels, the judge said.
The licence was granted on December 17th 1996.