There is an urgent need for an adequate thermal treatment facility to enable the four Dublin authorities to meet their targets to divert waste from landfill.
And attempts by some objectors to reopen existing policy on waste management could not be entertained by Bord Pleanála, Dublin City Council has claimed.
In his closing statement yesterday to a public hearing into the council's plans for a Poolbeg incinerator in Dublin, Bill Shipsey SC, for the council, mounted a strong defence of the proposed development.
While it had been suggested that a "zero waste" policy should be implemented instead of a thermal treatment infrastructure, the evidence was that there was likely to be a "very significant" amount of residual waste that must be dealt with.
"Thermal treatment provides the most satisfactory solution. It is a proven and safe technology in widespread use across the EU."
Furthermore, as a matter of law, the planning board must take relevant waste management and strategy plans "as it finds them". It could not reconsider the validity of the policy objectives laid down by these plans, Mr Shipsey said.
Similarly, the board had no jurisdiction to reopen the "old arguments" over the policy direction adopted by Government and local authorities on the thermal treatment of waste.
The issue of air quality would also have to be addressed by the Environmental Protection Agency in the context of a waste licence application.
"This an in-fill site, located between a sewage treatment plant and a power station, with another power station in close proximity.
"It is respectfully submitted that it is unrealistic, as some objectors seem to suggest, that this site might be left in an undeveloped state or transformed into a managed wildlife area, he said
"The site is currently in use as a scrap metal yard and for molasses importing. . .The proposed development is in fact likely to be the cleanest industrial use on the peninsula."
The selected site also had potential for district heating schemes in the future, according to Mr Shipsey, and would have no significant impact or adverse effect on the health of humans, water quality nor any impact on property prices in the area. It was also not Bord Pleanála's role to decide if the proposed development would be economically viable.
However, yesterday's hearing also heard claims that the level of greenhouse gas emissions from the proposed incinerator had been incorrectly evaluated by Dublin City Council.
Sandymount resident Joe McCarthy, a chartered engineer, said the true level of CO2 emissions in various models would be more than double what the council had originally estimated.
He said it had to date produced three such models in relation to this aspect of the plans, the most recent of which was presented just this week.
The hearing inspector, Padraic Thornton, said he intended to listen to Mr McCarthy's completed report into overall climatic change calculations at a special session next Thursday.