Republican News · Thursday 31 January 2002

TD slams Southeast incinerator proposals

Sinn Féin TD Arthur Morgan has slammed the decision of Carlow and Kilkenny County Councils to back the building of an incinerator in the South East. He described those who voted for the proposal of "lacking vision and taking the easy option in relation to waste management."

Deputy Morgan was commenting after councils in Carlow and Kilkenny voted in favour of building an incinerator in the region within six years.

The Louth-based deputy said: "This is a cop out. It is the easy way out in relation to waste management. Our primary problem is the amount of waste we produce. Reducing that is what our primary objective should be. Not supporting a new incinerator industry that will depend on the production of waste for its survival. We all have a responsibility in this and local authorities must provide the lead in implementing a strategy of reduction and recycling of waste. The decision by these county councils lacks vision and will do nothing to but add to population problems by sending more dioxins into the atmosphere."

Meanwhile, Waterford County Council has rejected a waste management plan for the Southeast because it includes incineration. Fianna Fáil's ten members were outvoted by eleven Opposition and independent councillors. And Wexford County Council has deferred a decision until next month after the county manager refused to allow them to adopt the plan with the provision that an incinerator would not be built in the county. The council previously voted by a 19-1 margin against incineration.

Councillors' visit criticised

Sinn Féin spokesperson Muiris Ó Súilleabháin has criticised the decision of a number of South Tipperary County Councillors to visit an incinerator in Denmark this week.

"The decision of the four Fianna Fáil and one Fine Gael councillors to visit this incinerator at the taxpayers' expense flies in the face of all the good work to date of the anti-incinerator campaign in South Tipperary," he said.

"There is no way anyone can view this as a positive step. By visiting this incinerator the councillors involved are essentially saying they have not yet made up their minds about the process of incineration, despite the majority of them already stating publicly that they are opposed to it.

"If they attempt to tell the South Tipperary public that they are opposed to incineration and nothing they see on this trip will make them change their minds, then they are simply wasting taxpayers' money by going on the trip in the first place.

"Questions also have to be asked of Fianna Fáil's and Fine Gael's Leinster House representatives on the matter. While former junior minister Noel Davern TD has been less than vehement in his opposition to incineration, both he and Tom Hayes TD have publicly opposed the building of the incinerator in Rosegreen. How can they now justify the decision of their county councillors to spend taxpayers' money in visiting one in Denmark?"