The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is to hold an oral hearing next month into objections to the licence granted for a landfill dump in Co Meath. The proposal has been called a "superdump" by opponents.
In July last year, Meath County Council granted permission, subject to 25 conditions, to Celtic Waste to develop the dump. The company has applied to the EPA for a licence under the Waste Management Act 1996, and the agency has indicated it intends to grant it, subject to 12 conditions.
The decision to hold an oral hearing was welcomed by the Boyne Valley and Newgrange Environmental Protection League, one of the objectors to the dump.
"This hearing will give the people of the area in particular, and Meath people in general, an opportunity to voice their concerns on the health impacts such a superdump will have on the environment in Meath," its spokesperson Mr Fergal O'Byrne said.
Mr O'Byrne, a candidate for the Green Party in the last general election, said opponents of the dump favour waste prevention, reuse and recycling instead.
The dunp site would be on 25 hectares of a 135-hectare site at Knockharley, Kentstown, about 10 km east of Navan between the N2 and N3.
One of the planning conditions is that only waste from the north-east counties of Louth, Meath, Cavan and Monaghan could be accepted and that it should not exceed 80,000 tonnes per year.
In April, An Bord Pleanála held an oral hearing into objections to the planning permission and its decision has yet to be announced.
Meanwhile, Galway for a Safe Environment group has accused the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, of being "completely anti-democratic" with his plans to fast-track applications to build incinerators and landfills. The group called on the Minister to publish a Health Research Board report on incineration and landfill commissioned by his predecessor.