A Kilkenny priest has expressed concern about the high number of cancer-related deaths among employees of a brick factory in the county owned by Cement Roadstone Holdings (CRH).
Msgr Michael Ryan, the parish priest of Castlecomer, said "there are questions to be answered" about a possible link between emissions from the Ormonde Brick Factory and a high incidence of cancer in the town.
He raised his concerns in a homily during the funeral Mass for a former employee of the company earlier this week and called for "independent monitoring" of emissions from the brick factory.
The priest's expression of concern arises in the wake of the publication of a report last month by the petitions committee of the European Parliament on concerns about stunted growth, low milk yields and high calf mortality among cattle on a farm near the brick factory owned by Dan Brennan.
The report noted that since 1990 the cattle on the farm have been "victim to a serious disorder which has restricted their growth and their milk production". CRH rejected the findings as having "no scientific basis whatsoever".
Msgr Ryan told The Irish Timesyesterday that he was expressing fears, worries and concerns of local people. He had already presided at "the funeral masses of eight people who worked all or part of their lives in Ormonde Brick who died from one form of cancer or another".
He said the names of 28 people who had died of cancer who either worked at or lived in the vicinity of, the factory had been given to the Department of Health.
Msgr Ryan called on CRH, "a corporation with enormous financial resources, and government agencies to monitor emissions from the factory in a more open way".
Minister for the Environment John Gormley told The Irish Timesyesterday that he would meet Mr Brennan "very soon" to discuss the matter.
Local TD and Green Party deputy leader Mary White said: "People were delighted that the monsignor had expressed the very real fears of the local community . . . about the possibility of cancer clusters in the Castlecomer area".
A spokesman for CRH yesterday extended the company's sympathy to the "wife and family" of their late colleague and said: "While we don't wish to add to their grief at this time, we must reject in the strongest terms any assertion that the Ormonde Brick operation is having, or has had, an adverse impact on human health in the area."
The Health and Safety Authority confirmed it had carried out investigations last year at the factory but "no link could be found" connecting cancer and employment at the factory.