The Protest Against Incineration

Saturday February 18, 2006 09:33

by Miriam Cotton

Cork Harbour Alliance for a Safe Environment are determined to prevent the incinerators proposed for Ringaskiddy. Despite recent government attempts to impose incineration on communities all over the country, there is now a growing national awareness that this solution to our waste problems is sheer lunacy. Anti-incinerator and other environmentally motivated groups are now joining forces to send a clear and unambiguous message to the government: stop taking us for fools.

Recent developments that CHASE are asking people to be aware of:

*The EPA has granted licences for TWO incinerators at Ringaskiddy – one for hazardous and industrial waste, and one for domestic waste (Nov 2005). That’s 215,260 tonnes of waste!

*Indaver is applying for a 33% increase in the size of its proposed incinerator in Co Meath, before building has even begun (Jan 2006).

*After strong lobbying by Indaver, planning regulations have been changed to allow incinerators to accept waste from outside their own regions.

*The Ringaskiddy and District Resdients’ Association are now seeking leave for a judicial review of the EPA’s decision to grant a licence for the two Ringaskiddy incinerators.

*In January 2005, a High Court judge found that there were significant grounds for a judicial review of the planning permission for the Ringaskiddy toxic waste incinerator, and theis case is expected to be hard in the near future.

Defiant in the face of the governments complete failure either to respond to the wishes of those who elect them, or to take account of the serious health and other consequences of incineration, CHASE are confident that this is a fight that will run and run. They say that more and more people are questioning both the wisdom of going down the incineration route and the Government’s and State’s liability to be responsible for incineration facilities.

Their most recent newsletter says that in a recent report in the Irish Times (16-01-06), reporter Mark Hennessy revealed that:

“The Department of the Environment spent 18 months trying to find ways to accommodate incinerator company Indaver’s objection to rules the prevented the transportation of rubbish over regional boundaries.”

The dishonesty with which the government is approaching this issue is clearly evident from the fact that Minister Roche subsequently changed the rules and facilitated the company. This is despite the fact that three consecutive Environment Ministers (Dempsey, Cullen, Roche) were unable to meet with CHASE, arguing that they were specifically excluded from interfering with or influencing the planning process.

CHASE believes that this fundamentally questions the Minister’s ability to do his job in an impartial manner and has called for his resignation. Their most recent newsletter quotes from a recent editorial in the Irish Examiner (05/01/06):

“We have shown that we can lead in environmental matters [smoking ban, platic bag levy] and we should have the confidence to consider carefully the broader remifications of waste disposal, so that the practices we implement are in the best interst of the Irish people.

We should consider this not just from an economic standpoint, but more importantly froma health perspective, in the full knowledge that the most healthy practices will ultimately be the most environmentally friendly.”

Visit the CHASE website for further information:

http://www.chaseireland.org/