Residents of the east Galway community of Kilconnell, Cappataggle and New Inn are highly critical of the Bord Pleanála ruling on the Greenstar landfill and have vowed to seek a judicial review and "take it to Europe, if necessary".
"An Bord Pleanála is fulfilling Government policy, which basically states that if you live in east Galway, you don't matter," Mr Tom Finn, spokesman for the community, said yesterday. The area has already been identified for south Connacht's new landfill, which must be developed to replace the existing dump at Poolboy in Ballinasloe.
Mr Finn was particularly critical yesterday of one of the conditions, which states that an independent geotechnical engineer should be engaged by the developer to review the site investigation data, and prepare a report on the adequacy of the data for the design of the "dewatering and construction phases" of the development.
"This is essentially an admission that the company's own environmental impact statement is inadequate," Mr Finn said.
The anti-dump group is also critical of the working hours set by An Bord Pleanála at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., Monday to Friday, and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays. "My two children cycle to school half a mile away. Once this starts, that is gone. It just won't be safe for them," Mr Pauric Lohan, farmer and chairman of the anti-dump group, said.
A former Galway county manager, Mr Donal O'Donoghue, gave a verbal commitment last year that there would never be two landfills in the area concurrently, given the time it would take to develop the State's facility at Cross/New Inn, some four miles from the Greenstar site. In his report issued yesterday, the Bord Pleanála inspector, Mr Robert Ryan, also states that the Greenstar facility represents an interim solution to a "major shortage" of landfill capacity in the region.
However, as the residents point out, Galway city is already exceeding its recycling targets, and the construction of an incinerator or thermal treatment plant is also still firmly on the agenda as part of the Connacht Waste Management Plan.
The row over the Greenstar project led to a Garda investigation in the area late last year, when the residents' group claimed that its members had received threatening phone calls and anonymous letters. Last December a suspect device was discovered by Mr Lohan outside his home. Gardaí initiated an investigation, but have been unable to proceed further due to insufficient evidence.