A UNESCO delegation has been told that opposition to plans by Indaver Ireland Ltd to build the State's first municipal waste incinerator at Carranstown, Co Meath, is not simply about pro- and anti-incineration but instead about the suitability of the site itself.
Carranstown is just outside the buffer zone of the Boyne Valley, which has been identified by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. A two-person delegation which arrived yesterday toured the valley and met opponents of the project.
Meath County Council decided to grant planning permission for the €85 million project. Subsequently, after an oral hearing, An Bord Pleanála last year granted permission for it against the recommendation of the inspector who chaired the hearing.
Yesterday, Mr Brian Hanratty of the Battle for the Boyne lobby group said the decisions by both the council and the appeals board were political, and "neither body showed any real consideration of the huge significance of the heritage of the area". He told the delegation that locating an incinerator in the Boyne Valley area was "avoidable" because a report by consultants MC O'Sullivan had identified three sites in the north-east as potentially suitable. Carranstown was not amongst them.
Mr Eugene Kearney of the Brú na Boinne consultative committee said it was not simply a matter of drawing a line as to where the World Heritage Site ended, "you have to take what feeds into it into consideration as well as what looks into it and out of it".
Northern Ireland Assembly member Mr Billy Armstrong presented a letter to Ms Fumiko Ohinata, who is leading the delegation, acknowledging that while the incinerator had gone through the planning process, "the Boyne Valley has such a critical mass of historic sites that it is surely worth special protection".
Mr Ian Lumley, planning officer with An Taisce, said the decision to locate an incinerator in the area underlined "Ireland's failure to meet international standards in heritage protection.
"We raised the large-scale failure of Ireland to implement UN and EU conventions and standards we have signed up to and this (incinerator) is a striking symbol of that," he said.
Ms Julitta Clancy of the Save Tara Skryne Valley group, which is against plans to route part of the M3 motorway near Tara, asked UNESCO to bear in mind that the valley extended to Tara.
Ms Ohinata said the delegation would take into account what it was told by citizens and professionals as well as governments. The visit to Ireland was to find out the status of the incinerator project and the general conservation issues around it, she said.
Indaver representatives are to meet the delegation tomorrow and will tell them that the incinerator will have no impact on Brú Na Boinne. "The site ... is eight kilometres by road from the Brú na Boinne site. In addition it is outside the buffer zone designated by the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government," the company said.