THE GOVERNMENT has formally backed Minister for the Environment John Gormley’s stance on incineration, saying the Green Party leader has its full confidence to develop proposals on waste management.
Mr Gormley is understood to have sought the Government statement in order to challenge evidence given by Dublin city manager John Tierney at an Oireachtas environment committee meeting last week. Mr Gormley is firmly opposed to Dublin City Council’s Poolbeg incinerator, which is being built in his Dublin South East constituency.
The council came under further pressure last night when it was revealed that the Competition Authority is investigating the local authority’s contract for the facility.
A spokesman for the council confirmed that the Irish Waste Management Association, representing a number of private waste management companies, had referred the contract to the Competition Authority. While the council would respond to the complaint, work on the project would continue, the spokesman said.
Government spokesmen took the unusual step of distributing a statement to political journalists during a post-Cabinet briefing yesterday in what was described as an attempt to clarify the Government’s position on incineration.
“The Government is committed to a resource-management approach to waste. Minister Gormley has the full confidence of the Government to develop proposals in that context,” the statement said.
Mr Tierney had told last week’s Oireachtas committee meeting that Dublin City Council was going ahead with the municipal waste incinerator on the Poolbeg peninsula because of – and not despite – Government policy.
It is understood Mr Gormley asked fellow Ministers at yesterday’s meeting to confirm that commitments on waste management in the renewed programme for government, agreed last year, represented the administration’s current thinking.
Mr Gormley is preparing a draft waste-management policy statement which will be issued for public consultation.
The Government statement said a decision to impose a levy on incineration had already been taken and the legislation to allow for this was being drafted and would be brought to the Dáil soon.
The Coalition’s policy on waste management and incineration was outlined in the 2007 and 2009 programmes for government, the statement said.
“Minister Gormley has responsibility for driving the development of these commitments through various policy initiatives including legislation.”
The Government’s programme provided for a “resource management approach” to waste which would have “inevitable” consequences for the scale and location of “residual waste infrastructure”.
The statement said Mr Gormley was carrying out a strategic environmental assessment on a proposed cap on incineration capacity.
The 2009 programme commits the Coalition to a cap to prevent waste going to incineration which could otherwise have gone to recycling.