Incineration bad for our image and exports

ON MY most recent visit to my old home in Monkstown, Cork, I was deeply distressed to learn that permission has been granted for a toxic waste incinerator in the Lower Harbour.

This is in spite of a highly adverse report and recommendation by the appropriate authority’s inspector after a searching public inquiry.

I am informed that responsibility for the detrimental effects of harmful gases and residual ash on the health of your citizens has been disclaimed by the Environmental Protection Agency and by the Department of Health.

If not these two bodies, who in government is responsible for protecting the environment and the health of the people?

Can this possibly be the same department of health which has sponsored your widely publicised ban on smoking in public houses or do you have two such departments of health acting in opposition to each other?

On the economic front, are the authorities not aware of the damage which this development must do throughout the world to Ireland’s clean, green image and the inevitable effect on your agricultural exports as consumers become increasingly conscious of the ill effects on their health of food produced in a polluted environment?

I understand that your environment minister, Martin Cullen, has warned of dire economic consequences if this proposal does not go ahead.

This naivety should be corrected by his colleagues in government with responsibility for exports, agriculture and health, while Mr Cullen undertakes a world tour observing and investigating the policies of waste reduction, re-use and recycling practised by Ireland’s competitors in the world food industry.

Please tell me it is not too late to reverse this foolish decision.

Aideen Kerr,

10 B, Peel Street,

Christchurch 5,

New Zealand.