Irish Examiner - 28/07/05
Credibility of EPA seriously damaged

The behaviour of the Environmental Protection Association (EPA) in the wake of the caustic soda spillage in Cork harbour is a cause for serious concern.

It is not an overstatement to say that the agency’s credibility has been seriously damaged as a result.

First it decided not to make the public aware of the spillage from the ADM factory, which happened just after midnight on Sunday, July 3, because it felt there was no danger to public health.

When the media eventually became aware of the spillage three weeks later, the agency said its public health assessment was made following a telephone conversation between its director of environmental enforcement, Dr Daragh Lynott, and the company that Sunday morning.

Last Monday, the EPA was still insisting that Dr Lynott had made the assessment and had decided not to send an inspector following the phone call with ADM because there was no danger to public health.

But the following day the agency changed tack and admitted Dr Lynott had not been in contact with the company because he was on annual leave at the time. A spokesperson said a senior official had been in contact that Sunday with ADM but they could not reveal the person’s identity.

Yesterday, however, after this newspaper established that, contrary to the earlier statements, there was in fact no contact between the EPA and ADM until Monday, July 4, the agency finally acknowledged this was the correct version of events.

Its explanation that ADM logged the accident in a non-emergency phone voicemail at the agency’s HQ is simply not good enough.

It raises as many questions as it answers and goes no way towards explaining behaviour by a State watchdog which is worrying in the extreme.