Planning hearing told capacity of incinerator should be limited

If An Bord Pleanála grants planning permission for a toxic waste incinerator at Cork Harbour it should limit its capacity, Cork County Council said yesterday.

Addressing the appeal board's hearing into Indaver Ireland's proposals for the incinerator at Ringaskiddy, Mr Brendan Kelleher, the council's chief planning officer, said the planned capacity was 26 per cent greater than that initially assessed and rejected by the county council.

He said the original planning application referred to 100,000 tonnes of waste per year, and "at no stage" did the documentation indicate the upper limit would be 126,000 tonnes, which had since been suggested by the promoters at the appeal.

He said the upper limit would mitigate against minimising waste generation, and would "significantly adjust" the residue output and traffic generated.

Addressing the hearing on behalf of the Green Party in Cork, a mechanical engineer, Mr Dominick Donnelly, said the incinerator would mark a "whole new departure in the way this State does its business, and there must be the widest possible consultation before the State should go down such a road".

He said it was "lamentable" the inquiry could only consider planning conditions and not "the environmental and health effects of what will actually go on in this building if it is built".

He noted that "this Government proposes to remove An Bord Pleanála from the process in the future, and to fast-track major infrastructure applications through the system, with no recourse to public consultation and no right of appeal except through the court system. This is a gross betrayal of the democratic rights of the people of this country by our Government."