Dublin City Council has started the process for extending the controversial Ringsend sewage plant at a cost of more than €50 million.
The €300 million waste water treatment plant, designed to process waste from 1.6 million people, began operating in June 2003. It has caused persistent odour problems since it opened and the council admitted earlier this year that it had reached, and exceeded, its capacity.
Local representatives met council management last April to discuss proposals for the extension of the plant. The council intends to redevelop the plant, not only to deal with overloading problems, but to expand capacity to deal with waste from up to 2.8 million people.
Management reached agreement with councillors that work on the extension would not begin until the odour problem had been eliminated.
The ABA consortium, which designed, built and runs the existing plant, is working to eliminate the smell and an additional €5 million of public money has been allocated to deal with the problem for 2006.
The council this week advertised for a "client's representative" for the extension project. The successful candidate would act as the council's representative throughout the tender process, advising on the financial, legal and environmental aspects of the scheme.
This move has put the council management in breach of their agreement to eliminate the smell before extending the plant, Sinn Féin councillor for the south-east area Daithí Doolan said.
"City council officials recently confirmed with me that no further extension to the plant would take place until the outstanding odour problems were fully dealt with."
The council should immediately withdraw their advertisement, he said.
"This council should not expand the plant until it is fully functioning, odour-free and meeting the best international standards."
However, council officials said yesterday that they had not broken their agreement. "The councillor must have misunderstood. There is preparatory work that has to be done for the next stage but no contractor has been appointed and work will not start on the expansion until the odour problem has been solved," city engineer Michael Philips said.
The tender process to extend the plant would take six to nine months and it would be at least two years before construction began, Mr Philips added.
