Ministers for Environment are disregarding impact of incineration

Indaver, with the knowledge of Environment Ministers Alan Kelly and Paudie Coffey, is again attempting to foist its outdated, dirty incinerators on Cork Harbour.

Earlier this year, junior minister, Paudie Coffey, who has special responsibility for planning, told Cork County Council it must drop its ban in its county development plans on building industrial-scale incinerators. There is little doubt that Minister Coffey could only send such a letter with the authorisation of Minister Kelly with whom the buck lies in the Department of the Environment.

The communities in Cork fought this company’s previous applications at great cost. They called in doctors, toxicologists, geologists, engineers, waste and toxic use reduction specialists as well as climate change experts and fire safety personnel to advise and attend the public hearings. The case for the incinerator was decisively lost in 2011 and we all breathed a sigh of relief.