Report to challenge Gormley on incinerator

ATTEMPTS BY Minister for the Environment John Gormley to discredit the Poolbeg incinerator will be challenged in a new report by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), Dublin City Council has said.

The report, Economic Approach to Municipal Waste Management in Ireland, to be published next Wednesday, will support the council’s approach to waste-management in the Dublin region, which includes the construction of a 600,000-tonne incinerator on the Poolbeg peninsula.

The report, which has been commissioned from the ESRI by the council, will also point to fundamental flaws in the International Review of Waste Management Policy which Mr Gormley said he intended to use to formulate future national policies on waste.

The review, published last November, suggests measures to limit the amount of waste available for incineration. Assistant city manager with responsibility for waste Séamus Lyons yesterday told councillors that the council had only ever acted in line with Government policy in relation to the development of the incinerator and that this would be backed by the ESRI report.

“The report will clear up some fundamental misunderstandings. Everything the city council has done has been totally in line with current Government policy. There has been some confusion where Mr Gormley is concerned over what is in the programme for government and what is government policy.”

The report is to examine waste-management policy nationally; Mr Gormley’s proposals to amend waste management policy; the benefits and drawbacks of mechanical biological treatment versus incineration, and the Poolbeg incinerator.

“We understand that the ESRI report will have very serious questions to ask about where the international review seems to be pushing us,” Mr Lyons said.

The report would also refute claims by Mr Gormley that the Poolbeg incinerator is not economically viable. “The claim that there will not be enough waste available for the incinerator, we refute that, as we believe the ESRI will next week.”