Irish Examiner - 27/06/05
Government ignores incineration risks

THE refusal of the Government recently to meet members of Cork Harbour Alliance for a Safe Environment (CHASE) should not surprise the people of Cork.

The Government continues to rubbish our well-founded concerns with glib responses like “incineration is safe,” while ignoring the findings of their own state-funded report from the Health Research Bureau which found that Ireland has insufficient resources to carry out adequate risk assessments for proposed waste management facilities.

Expert medical evidence was given at the EPA oral hearing stating that children are now found to have serious medical problems which have been clearly linked to incineration, even within permitted EU limits.

Again this evidence is being ignored as it suits the Government’s plans to steamroll ahead with their major infrastructure projects.

The experience of CHASE (which represent the views of over 30,000 people) is that communities don’t matter very much to this Government.

One could be forgiven for thinking if we were a business group (along the lines of those envisaged in the ‘Forum for Opportunity’ fund-raising campaign of Fianna Fáil), with funds available for the party coffers, our access to ministers would be much less restricted.

Mary Hurley
PRO
CHASE
Gortnafleur
High Road
Cork