Plans to designate the State's first licensed landfill as part of a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) should not pose problems either for the landfill's operation or the ecology of the area, according to the Department of the Environment.
Nor will the designation proposed for the EPA licensed landfill site at Muingnaminnane in Co Kerry interfere with plans to extend it, according to a senior engineer in the environment section of the council. A modern landfill in an SAC should not be regarded as "a time-bomb", Mr Fergus Dillon said.
The Department of the Environment's most recent list of SACs includes the townland of Muingnaminnane which contains Kerry's EPA landfill site, licensed in the late 1990s.
Muingnaminnane is being designated as part of the Lower River Shannon SAC and includes the Smearlagh river, and substantial salmon river tributaries which rise there, under the current tranche of SACs, a spokesman for the Department of the Environment explained.
As it was a recent landfill, it operated under an integrated pollution control licence, he said.
A large number of marine and river sites of ecological importance in the south-west are being designated under the European Communities (Natural Habitats) Regulations, 1997.
The north Kerry landfill site has been controversial, with proposals to extend its operating life meeting stiff resistance from local farmers and landowners.
Locals refused to allow refuse from other counties into the site, and turf-cutters are to take legal action against the council.
Mr Fergus Dillon, senior council engineer, said while the inclusion of a landfill in an SAC might seem "like a time-bomb", the reality was different and should not cause concern.
"It's a contained landfill. Nothing leaves that site. While the potential to pollute is there, in reality the potential to pollute is virtually nil."