Unacceptable - Incinerator decision delayed

THE delays around finalising the location of the national children’s hospital in Dublin may have set the benchmark for prevarication, political featherbedding, professional disagreement, inexplicable decisions and just plain, unacceptable time wasting in public projects in Ireland. The delivery of that facility is a snail-paced saga of a different colour.

Bertie Ahern, one of the central players in that adventure — yes, it is that long ago — once complained that it takes far too long to get things done in this country. He was, and is, right. The latest example of that slow-motion development is the announcement that the An Bord Pleanála ruling expected at this time on a €160m incinerator for Ringaskiddy, Co Cork, has been deferred until, most likely, the end of the year.

Irrespective of your position on the project, whether you imagine it a blight on an already crowded landscape or an essential part of industrial development, this must be unsatisfactory. These delays, just as at the Corrib Gasfield, hardly suggest an efficient planning culture to those who might invest in our country. We need to do better.