Delay in making ruling is absurd

YESTERDAY’S ruling by An Bórd Pleanála against a toxic waste incinerator proposed for Cork harbour may deter some investors but the fact that it took ten years to reach this point may deter even more.

This is an absurd time frame for a project like this. This is exacerbated by the fact that some of the four reasons for rejecting the application were made as long ago as 2004.

In the decade it has taken to reach this point, and this may not even be the end of the saga, Ireland has changed utterly. We are approaching a point where one-in-five of the workforce is unemployed. We are told to expect significant population growth over the next few decades. This brings considerable challenges and unless we can have a planning process that can reach conclusions far more quickly those challenges will be even more difficult than they might be.