An anti-incineration campaign in south Tipperary, backed by horseracing duo Aidan O'Brien and John Magnier, as well as composer Andrew Lloyd Weber, is gathering momentum.
The trio are among a large number of appellants to An Bord Pleanála against a decision by South Tipperary County Council to grant permission for an animal waste incinerator at Rosegreen, near Cashel.
A number of local GPs, An Taisce and the two main farm organisations, the IFA and the ICMSA, have also joined the campaign to prevent the project from going ahead.
The company planning to operate the incinerator, however, claims the fears expressed by opponents of the project are unfounded. National By-Products says the plant would be used to treat a "clean fuel", animal offal, and would give rise to no unclean emissions.
The thermal-oxidiser, as the company calls it, is needed to dispose of meat and bonemeal and risk materials taken out of the food chain as a result of BSE. A spokesman for the company, however, stressed that no BSE-infected material would be processed there.
Such assurances have done little to placate the growing numbers campaigning against the facility, who have formed the South Tipperary Anti-Incineration Campaign (STAC).
They include racehorse trainer Aidan O'Brien and breeder John Magnier, whose respective operations, Ballydoyle stables and Coolmore stud, are both in the Golden Vale area where opposition to the incinerator is running high. Both claim customers will be driven away by the prospect of an incinerator operating close by.
Andrew Lloyd Weber, who has a residence and stud farm at Kiltynan Castle, two miles from Fethard, has submitted an appeal to An Bord Pleanála.
The Taoiseach's special adviser, Dr Martin Mansergh, is also supporting the campaign, and is to join a delegation from STAC which has been invited to address next Monday's meeting of South Tipperary County Council.
Public meetings on the issue had been attracting large numbers, with 1,500 attending the most recent one in Clonmel last week.
Fears are also being expressed that the incinerator, which would also be capable of processing industrial waste, could ultimately have a much broader use than currently indicated.
This was dismissed by the National By-Products spokesman, who said the company, which employs 130 people at its existing operation in Rosegreen, was an animal waste-processing company and was not seeking to divert into other areas.
In response to concerns about the company's environmental record, he said it had been guilty of "minor breaches" of regulations on two occasions in its 40 years of operations. It spent €3 million last year bringing the plant up to the highest environmental standards.
Meanwhile, three local authorities in the south-east have backed a 20-year waste-management plan for the region which includes incineration.
Carlow and Kilkenny county councils and Waterford city council approved the plan at meetings this week. Waterford County Council rejected it, however, by a one-vote margin.
Wexford County Council deferred a decision on the controversial plan,while South Tipperary County Council is due to vote on it next week.
No location for the proposed incinerator has yet been identified.