Galway Corporation voted last night to adopt the Connacht Draft Waste Management Plan under which a controversial incinerator is due to be built on the outskirts of the city.
Following a two-hour debate, councillors voted eight to seven in favour of the plan, thereby overturning their unanimous decision to reject it last year.
Four Fianna Fail and four PD councillors voted in favour of the draft plan with one Fianna Fail member, Senator Margaret Cox, voting against, along with the four Fine Gael and two Labour Party members of the corporation.
The councillors have request ed the right to make technical variations to the draft plan at a later date. In its current state, it lists four possible sites near Galway city for an incinerator.
Ahead of the meeting, Fine Gael members of the corporation and Galway county council issued a joint statement in which they reiterated their opposition to incineration and to the Connacht Regional Plan. They called for a new site to be chosen for a landfill in the east of the county.
Meanwhile, concerns are mounting that the Galway waste crisis may lead to job losses as businesses and households in the city and county were left without collection services again yesterday and rubbish bags piled up on the streets.
Private waste collectors called off their picket at the Poolboy site near Ballinasloe, where a ban on commercial waste from the city came into effect last Thursday.
But the collectors failed to resolve the impasse during a meeting with the assistant manager of Ballinasloe Urban District Council, Mr Tom Kavanagh. They are due to meet UDC officials again this morning.
Because of continued uncertainty over the situation at Ballinasloe, the local authority announced there would be no domestic refuse collections in the city yesterday and again this morning.
A spokesman for IBEC, the employers' organisation, said there could be significant job losses in the region because of the crisis.
"We have been contacted by our members, in particular those within the food sector, who are having to consider their operations," the IBEC west regional director, Mr John Brennan, said.
Mr Brennan called on the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, to consider an amendment to the Waste Management Act 1996 which would enable Ballinasloe UDC to reapply for a licence for a larger tonnage for the landfill site.
A spokesman for the Irish Hotels Federation said the noncollection of waste would cause enormous damage to the tourist industry and pose serious health risks to residents and visitors.