The waste management firm Indaver is preparing to lodge a planning application with Cork County Council for the construction of Ireland's first toxic waste incinerator at Ringaskiddy in Cork Harbour.
At about the same time the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will publish a national plan for the management of hazardous waste in the Republic.
Ireland exports some 47,000 tonnes of hazardous waste each year and the figure is growing. Germany and the UK are two of the receiving countries but the situation is not destined to last.
The EU has made it plain that each member-state will have to tackle its own toxic waste problem, and although no deadline has been set, the writing is on the wall. The EPA has been preparing for this eventuality.
The plan, scheduled for publication in the next two months, will be the culmination of extensive public consultation which has involved local authorities throughout the State. It will say the time has come for Ireland to develop its own facilities for hazardous waste disposal, either through purpose built landfill sites or incineration.
The publication of the EPA report and the planning application will undoubtedly serve to focus minds nationally on the issue of hazardous waste, but nowhere more so than in Ringaskiddy.
Indaver is quite open about it. It says Cork was chosen because the county produces 60 per cent of Ireland's toxic waste and Ringaskiddy was identified as the site for the incinerator because that's where the main cluster of industries in the pharmaceutical and chemical sector resides. The company, which already has an Irish presence through its 60 per cent owned subsidiary, MinChem, looked at Little Island in Cork as an alternative site but plumped for Ringaskiddy as the ideal location.
It has infrastructure such as water, power and roads specifically laid on and designed with port-related industries in mind, and it presents an ideal customer base.
The EPA's consultative process began in September 1999 with the publication of its draft National Hazardous Waste Management Plan. When the completed plan is published in midsummer, the agency will list nine priorities up to 2004.
One of them will pinpoint the need to identify and deal with sites at which hazardous waste has already been dumped, but perhaps the most important one will refer to the need to develop "hazardous waste landfill capacity and thermal treatment (incineration) to achieve self-sufficiency and reduce our reliance on exports".
The document will also note: "Significant quantities of hazardous waste are exported for recovery and disposal abroad. Dependence on overseas outlets leaves Irish industry vulnerable to market forces outside of its control. EU policy dictates that Ireland should strive for self-sufficiency in the management of hazardous waste . . . The need for self-sufficiency in relation to hazardous waste landfill and thermal treatment must be addressed."
The argument seems clear. We are running out of conventional landfill space, hence the row over "superdumps" in cities such as Cork, and were it not for our European neighbours, we would have nowhere to put a huge proportion of our toxic waste.
But why Ringaskiddy? That's what the people of the village want to know. Nowadays, Ringaskiddy is a thriving commercial and ferry port with a concentration of high-tech pharmaceutical and chemical industries.
In one sense, the 1,000-acre Ringaskiddy industrial landbank, tailor made for this kind of industry, is a testament to the IDA's success at the beginning of the 1970s when there was a policy sea change.
The days of the jobs-for-life industries such as Dunlop and Ford were coming to a close and the pharmachem sector was earmarked as the perfect replacement. Fronting the sea, and with abundant land available, Ringaskiddy seemed perfect too as a location for these industries. Through an investment running to hundreds of millions, Cork County Council made Ringaskiddy the most expensive serviced site in Ireland. The IDA's problem was how to fill it.
Slowly, the big names began to arrive and just as surely, questions began to be asked about the ability of the council to police them and ensure the health and safety of people living around the harbour.
At times, the agitation became extremely vociferous and played no small part in the establishment of the EPA as a national watchdog.
Few in Ringaskiddy will forget the weekend of August 6th, 1993, when an explosion and fire wrecked the Hickson plant, and propelled the Cork County Emergency Plan into operation. No lives were lost but there was serious pollution.
That was on a Friday. On the following Sunday, the nearby ADM plant was partially destroyed by another explosion and fire. Various smells and odours from the plants have caused frequent public annoyance and concern over the years, although it has to be said the industrial cluster is nowadays relatively well behaved.
News of the possible arrival of a national toxic waste incinerator has caused deep misgivings in the village, which has a population of 429. Mr Sean Forde, the outgoing chairman of the residents' association, says Ringaskiddy has had enough and should not be asked to suffer the rumblings of sealed container trucks as they transport dangerous waste from all over Ireland to the proposed plant.
There could, he claims, be as many as 80 truck movements each day, in addition to the noisy ferry port activity, and even the Ringaskiddy roads system has not been designed for that.
Indaver, through its general manager, Mr John Ahern, offers a guarantee that the plant would be odour free and that the plume from the stack would be invisible except on the kind of days when you can see your own breath.
Even in such conditions, he says, the emission would be only barely noticeable. Indaver's parent company in Belgium has a 100 per cent record, Mr Ahern adds, and local residents as well as farmers and the media, will be offered the opportunity to visit the toxic waste site at Antwerp and the non-hazardous treatment plant at Bevern, 15 miles away. He makes one other promise.
The plant would never seek to import toxic waste in an effort to expand its business. The annual 7,000-tonne residue of toxic ash would be stabilised in cement blocks and used in the construction industry.
RINGASKIDDY has changed from a quiet waterfront village into a powerful industrial centre, playing host to companies such as Pfizer Pharmaceuticals/Warner Lambert, Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, ISPAT, DePuy Johnson&Johnson, Elisa Partners and ADM.
Between them, they employ some 2,000 people as well as a similar number in service industries, and contribute an estimated £220 million annually to the Cork economy. In recent years three of these companies alone have invested £760 million in upgrading plant and facilities.
The breakdown is: Pfizer (£480 million); GlaxoSmithKline (£220 million) Novartis (£60 million).
Mr Forde insists the villagers must now be given time to take stock, a process, which will begin tonight in Ringaskiddy when the residents hold their annual general meeting. "Our immediate response would be that it would not be welcomed by the general public in the area," he adds.
However, sooner rather than later, local authorities throughout the State and the Government will have to confront the issue of toxic waste management. The agenda has now been set, the debate will begin in Ringaskiddy.