Over 2,000 objections to the proposed waste incinerator at Poolbeg, Dublin were received by An Bord Pleanála yesterday on the closing date for lodging appeals against the project.
Objections to the facility planned for a 5.5-hectare site in the southeast of the city were yesterday made by the Tánaiste Michael McDowell, Labour TD Ruairí Quinn, Green Party chairman John Gormley and several other local politicians, including city councillors Wendy Hederman (PD), Dermot Lacey (Labour) and Daithí Doolan (Sinn Féin).
A further 2,400 objections from local residents were hand delivered to the board's offices in Marlborough Street, Dublin.
In a personal letter accompanying his 24-page objection (submitted jointly with Ms Hederman) Mr McDowell states that the incinerator contravenes Government policy, despite claims to the contrary by Dublin City Council, the proposers of the scheme.
The choice of the Poolbeg peninsula is the result of "blinkered thinking" on behalf of the council, he said, and a "single enormous facility" was a "bad idea". The council's attempts at consultation with the local community were a "sham" he added.
The incinerator proposal "is a hangover from outdated thinking and years of treating Ringsend as the industrial dump of Dublin." The Labour Party was "totally opposed to the foolish proposal to locate an incinerator on the Poolbeg peninsula", Mr Quinn said.
