Members of an EU fact-finding delegation have prepared a preliminary report strongly criticising the Government's plans for an incinerator at Poolbeg as well as plans to build a motorway close to Tara.
The draft report was prepared by members of the European Parliament's petitions committee, which visited Ireland on the back of complaints by Irish citizens about several issues to do with the environment.
Due to be finalised early next month, the report notes that while it was possible to see why Poolbeg had been chosen as a site being a "brown-field development" with access to "dock and quay facilities", it also points to several shortcomings.
"The exiguity of access, the proximity of the housing estates and residential areas, the lack of roads adapted to heavy lorries . . . showed without doubt why so many serious and largely unanswered questions have been raised . . . about the suitability of Poolbeg." It points out that the proposal - which would see one of the biggest incinerators in Europe built at Poolbeg - comes at a time when "incineration as a form of waste disposal is being discarded completely by many of Europe's regions".
The report recommends that the Government should check if the incinerator would comply with EU laws on habitat and bird protection, with the environmentally important Liffey and Tolka estuaries and Sandymount strand, all nearby.
On the proposed M3 motorway close to Tara, the report notes that the "enormous heritage value to the nation and to the world" made a committee delegation necessary.
It stresses that "everything indicates that the planners acted diligently in assessing the practical options given the knowledge available at the time".
But it goes on to say the delegation was "perplexed by the choice of route and by the damage done to the integrity of the many sites in the Tara area and the Gabhra Valley". The report asks why it has been "deemed necessary to build one of the largest M3 intersections precisely at this most vulnerable location in terms of Ireland's national heritage" and wonders why the Government puts so much emphasis on roads and "so little" on a rail network.
The final report - it still may be changed by the full committee - will be assessed by the European Commission. The petitions committee itself has no powers, and it will be up to the commission to say whether it is prepared to follow up in any way.
However, the Tara motorway is already under the EU's microscope. The commission sent a reasoned opinion to the Government on the issue earlier this year. It believes the State should carry out a second environment impact assessment.
Last Friday, Ireland's official response was handed into the commission. According to one official, it offers a "robust defence" of the Government's actions concerning the Tara motorway.