CLARE COUNTY Council is examining the option of closing or selling the county’s loss-making €11 million landfill facility.
The move by the cash-strapped local authority comes in response to declining amounts of waste being landfilled at the site near the village of Inagh, 12km from Ennis.
The waste facility was only opened in 2002 in the face of stiff local opposition. However, in an internal council memo, acting senior engineer Paul Moroney said that taking into account the decline of waste to the landfill over the past eight months “the council has serious issues to consider”.
“Such options being considered include selling the facility, leasing the facility or sale by lease.”
Mr Moroney also puts forward the option of closing the landfilling component of the site, with the council “operating the facility on a care-and-maintenance basis only, with only the recycling centre open to the public”.
Mr Moroney writes: “While no procedure is currently in place regarding any of the above, I wish to inform you that all options are actively being discussed, and will be developed further in the coming weeks.”
Mr Moroney warns that phase four of the facility – due to begin between summer 2010 and summer 2011 – “would involve a multimillion expansion, and currently restrictions apply to the amount of money that councils can borrow, and the financial viability of any such undertaking would need to be assessed”.
An opponent of the landfill, Inagh resident Perry Longe, described the landfill as a “great big white elephant and a monumental waste of taxpayers’ money”.
Ms Longe said: “The bottom line is that the landfill is not cost-effective and is not taking in enough waste to be self-financing.”
She said the landfill had a licence to accept 56,500 tonnes of waste per annum, yet took in only 33,000 last year. “This year they are expecting only 20,000 in waste to be landfilled. The major waste contractors are going elsewhere as they find it more profitable to do so.”
She questioned why the landfill was placed at Inagh, which was on the periphery of Ennis-Shannon-Limerick population zone.
Yesterday, outgoing chair of the council’s special policy committee, Cllr Patricia McCarthy (Ind), described as “wrong, wrong, wrong” the move by the council executive to draw up proposals on the sale or closure of the landfill without informing councillors.
She said the council withdrawing from landfilling at Inagh “is not a decision for management; it is a decision to be made by councillors”.
North Clare councillor Martin Conway (FG) yesterday called on county manager Tom Coughlan and environment director David Timlin to have all the information, including financial, on the landfill for the councillors at next Monday’s September council meeting.
Mr Timlin confirmed yesterday he would be presenting a report on the facility to councillors at the meeting.
Green Party councillor Brian Meaney said he would not like to see the operation of the landfill fall into private hands.
