Council investing substantially in unapproved incinerator

It has emerged that Dublin City Council has already spent E10.5 million on the planned incinerator in Poolbeg in Ringsend although there have been no application to date for planning permission.

The council is to seek planning permission from An Bord Pleanala for the incinerator at the end of June. To date it has already spent more than E10 million on the project. This has not yet been approved by the board.
At the moment the council is not in a position to talk about future spending. If the facility gets permission, the final costs will be dependent on conditions set out by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), An Bord Pleanala and the Commission for Energy Regulation.

Local residents, environmental groups and politicians are against the incinerator. Minister for Justice Michael McDowell says that Ringsend is the wrong location for the facility and says that all parties on the council are against it.
Sinn Fein councillor Daithi Doolan said that the council should never have spent such large sums of money on the project.
“No one doubts that this city faces a massive waste crisis, but simply promoting and then imposing an incinerator on the people of Dublin will not solve the problem.

“The millions wasted on this public relations racket should rightly have been invested in promoting reduction of waste and invested in our fledgling recycling industry,” he said.