Connect/Eddie Holt: On Monday, Fingal County Council will consider a plan that could effectively turn one of its most scenic seaside villages into a vast toilet for almost one million people.
The 24 members of the council will decide whether to agree to the building of a €140 million regional sewage plant in Portrane, north Co Dublin. The proposed plant would process effluent from as far away as Leixlip, Co Kildare.
It would also serve the sewage demands of west Dublin - Blanchardstown, Mulhuddart, Lucan, Clondalkin - and parts of east Meath as well as its own hinterland. It's planned, too, that Portrane would take waste currently processed at Swords, Malahide and Ringsend. Given the ordeals of residents in Ringsend and Swords, the stink from the proposed Portrane plant would likely be dire.
North Dublin and east Meath are earmarked for undesired projects. There's the extended dump at Balleally in Lusk, Co Dublin; the 350-acre "superdump" at Tooman in north Co Dublin; the new prison at Thornton Hall in Co Meath; the proposed incinerator between Drogheda, Co Louth, and Duleek, Co Meath, and now plans for a huge sewage plant for Portrane. Dumps, a prison, an incinerator and tens of thousands of tons of faeces and urine - great, eh? Who'd have believed it with Bertie Ahern, professional northside Dub, as Taoiseach? We know Minister for the Environment Dick Roche has said he'd oppose an incinerator in his own Wicklow constituency. Likewise Minister for Justice Michael McDowell in Dublin South East, which includes Ringsend.
In fairness, Ringsend has suffered enough. The stink from its sewage plant is obnoxious and makes people nauseous. The same is true in Swords - a person described by this week's Fingal Independent newspaper as an "international odour consultant" has been employed to try to control the stench from that town's plant. The proposed Portrane plant would be almost as large as the Ringsend one. The stench at Ringsend has lasted more than two years and could persist indefinitely. The plant's operators insist the stink will be eradicated, but people who live with it in their nostrils require more than political or commercial assurance - which has already repeatedly let them down.
"There is no way these plants should be built anywhere near a built-up area," Damian Cassidy, chairman of Ringsend/Irishtown/Sandymount Environment Group has said.
Despite its splendid seaside scenery, Portrane, remote on the north end of the Donabate peninsula, has housed throughout the 20th century another generally undesired project: St Ita's Psychiatric Hospital. During its planning in the 1890s, so unwanted were mentally ill people that Dublin's burghers considered building the hospital on Lambay Island. In the event, the hospital - a series of magnificent red brick buildings with stunning views of Lambay - was built in Portrane. Though still in use, fewer than 300 patients live there now. It used to house many times that number. Still, St Ita's remains a sad place. About 5,000 former residents are buried in a nearby cemetery, with just one headstone. Those burials continued until 1989.
Anyway, as Portrane's hospital winds down, the Greater Dublin Strategic Drainage Study recommends the village should instead house a colossal sewage plant. Sean Ryan, the local Labour Party TD, says the attempt to have the Water Services Investment Programme approved on Monday is a "back-door approach with no openness". Like the "thermal treatment" guff used by supporters and profiteers to describe incineration, "Water Services Investment Programme - Revised Assessment of Need 2005-2012" is a euphemism. It doesn't acknowledge the likely stench, potential environmental damage - including to a Blue Flag beach - and the effect on property prices ensured by a huge sewage plant.
It's not as if there aren't options. Prof John Simmie of NUI Galway's chemistry department has said of incineration that the ideal is that "waste should be treated where it's being created". Small sewage plants in more areas would lead to this. Cllr Joe Corr (Green Party) of Fingal County Council emphasised the good sense of such an approach: "Let's take care of our own waste issues," he said. "Would they ever dream of pushing something like this out in Dalkey? Should everyone else not be taking responsibility for waste? Nobody in the community of Portrane or on the Donabate peninsula will gain from this proposed sewage treatment plant."
Corr responded because the constituency's Green Party TD, Trevor Sargent, is abroad. The other two constituency TDs - Jim Glennon and GV Wright, both of Fianna Fáil - were emailed shortly after noon on Wednesday. Neither had replied before this column's deadline. Anyway, it appears that a few thousand people in Portrane are expected to put up with almost a million other people's faeces and urine. Meanwhile, close by, huge rubbish dumps, the new Mountjoy prison and an incinerator are planned.
This is not simply hard-neck, cute hoor stuff. It's insulting and represents the abusive, bullying values of the new Ireland. Monday's meeting will tell a tale about Fingal County Council's self-respect. Already the contempt shown for the region's people is monumental.
eholt@irish-times.ie