Minor industry left a major pollution problem

YOUR correspondent Maurice Fitzgerald bemoans the Irish Steel debacle, blaming denationalisation among other things (Irish Examiner letters, August 27).

Irish Steel was a massive strain on the electricity grid, and this caused a stockpile of radioactive waste to be produced. While a ‘huge’ industry to those employed there, and who must now attempt to find work, it was minor in terms of steel production on an international basis.

Politics meant Irish Steel could not be assessed objectively while in public hands. If privatisation meant this uneconomic, power-sapping, polluting site could be demolished and replaced with something that made money, drained less from the grid and was less polluting, Ringaskiddy and the rest of Cork harbour would be the better for it.