EPA to improve dialogue with public
The agency was under fire earlier this year for its handling of a number of incidents at chemical companies in the harbour and Ringaskiddy areas.
Details of a chemical spill at the ADM plant and a pipe labelling error at the GSK plant became public weeks after they occurred.
Residents said confidence in the EPA was at an all-time low.
As part of a confidence building exercise, three senior EPA officers met with Ringaskiddy residents association on Wednesday.
They said that while they felt the agency had dealt well technically with the incidents earlier this year, they admitted it had “failed miserably” in its communication with residents.
Director of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Enforcement, Dara Lynott, said: “There was a crying need for us to engage with the community.”
He was joined at the meeting by Dr Ciaron O’Donnell, a programme manager in charge of the EPA’s laboratories and effluent sampling department, and Kieran O’Brien, the man in charge of licence enforcement in Cork.
They told residents that communication from the agency will improve within weeks.
“I have scheduled a series of meetings with representatives of the pharmachem industry and with the Department of the Environment with a view to improving the direct lines of communication with residents,” Mr Lynott said.
“There has been a lot of concern, a lot of criticism from residents in the area.
“We met with them to let them know that they are being listened too, to see what it is we can do to improve communication and to see how we do it.
“We need improved communication and we are now trying to put that in place.”
It should be in place after Christmas, Mr Lynott said.
He said the EPA was looking at how it could inform residents of all types of incidents, whether serious or not.
“We have to step in and communicate directly,” he said.
Residents spokesman Braham Brennan described the meeting as an “important breakthrough” in relations with the EPA.
Meanwhile, EPA investigations are ongoing into the ADM caustic soda spillage.
Mr Lynott said the EPA was satisfied an area 40 metres from the company’s jetty was the only area to be impacted.
“We are taking that further in terms of enforcement,” he said. The EPA is also still investigating the pipe labelling error at GSK.
