Community protests against incinerator

COMMUNITY residents protested yesterday at plans to build an incinerator in their area.

Locals in Ringsend, Dublin, vowed to take their campaign to the Dáil tomorrow, where the Green Party will call on the Government to scrap the planned incinerator.

The residents, accompanied by their children, held a protest in the form of a family day out in the Docklands area.

“Residents will continue to protest and campaign until the plans for this incinerator are scrapped,” said Francis Corr of Combined Residents Against Incineration (CRAI).

The lobby group is made up of five residents groups in the Ringsend, Irishtown and Sandymount area.

“We will be at the Dáil this Tuesday calling on the politicians to bide by their word and vote against mass burn incineration in Dublin Bay,” said Ms Corr.

“If an incinerator is built in Dublin Bay it will be a green light for mass incineration across the country.”

John Gormley, local Green Party TD, said he would be pushing a private members motion in the Dáil tomorrow and Wednesday.

“This private members motion will give Fianna Fáil and the PDs the opportunity to put their money where their mouths are on the issue of an incinerator at Ringsend.

“Our motion calls for the Minister for the Environment to use these powers to vary the waste management plan in order to exclude incineration from the Poolbeg Peninsula.”

Mr Gormley claimed the Government knew that the Poolbeg peninsula was an “entirely inappropriate location” for an incinerator.

“In particular, there is a serious access problem which will result in many hundreds of trucks trundling through Sandymount and Ringsend.”

Local Labour councillor Kevin Humphreys hit out at the record of local PD deputy, Justice Minister Michael McDowell.

“Minister Michael McDowell at the last general election ran a poster campaign: ‘Single party Government no thanks.’

“Local communities in Dublin South East have said no thanks to an incinerator in the centre of our city and if he fails to stop the incinerator being built, the electorate of Dublin South East will be saying ‘no thanks’ to Michael McDowell.”

He said Dublin City Council was planning to build a 500,000 to 750,000-tonne incinerator on the Poolbeg Peninsula.

“This will lead to over a 1,000 extra heavy goods vehicles a week through our community, it will also destroy the amenities of the Poolbeg Peninsula and Sandymount Strand and increase the dioxin in the air we breathe.”