An Bord Pleanála has announced that it will hold an oral hearing into plans for a toxic waste incinerator at Ringaskiddy in Co Cork.
Planning permission for the incinerator was rejected by Cork County Council last May, but was appealed by the promoters Indaver Ireland. A €93 million facility is planned for a 30-acre site, capable of handling 100,000 tonnes of waste per year.
The board has not announced a date for the hearing but it is thought it will be in a Cork city hotel in about two months' time.
The proposed incinerator, to be located in an area which has a high concentration of pharmaceutical industries, is a controversial issue and a large crowd of objectors lined the entrance to County Hall last May when councillors were debating the proposition.
At that meeting the county manager, Mr Maurice Moloney, said: "All indications are that there is no reason why this application should not be approved, and the issues of health and the environment are for another body to decide. The application before you can only be refused on the grounds that it does not comply with the County Development Plan, which we adopted earlier this year."
Welcoming the decision to hold an oral hearing, the Green Party TD for Cork South Central, Mr Dan Boyle, said: "Pollutants from an incinerator as far afield as Wales have been found in birds' eggs in the south-west of Ireland." He said these studies "completely undermine the arguments in favour of the incinerator. "The report proves the long-distance effects of incineration as a form of waste disposal. Scientists believe that the pollutants were released by an incinerator in Pontypool in south Wales that was closed in 2002," he added.
Supporters of the incinerator, including Cllr Vivien Callaghan (FF), have argued that industries in the harbour area now employ about 3,500 people. "This year over half of all investment in this State will be in the pharmaceutical sector. This incinerator is a fact of life," he told the planning hearing last May.
