Analysis: The current approval process for incinerators facilitates neither side, writes Tim O'Brien.
Both Indaver Ireland and opponents of the company's incinerator projects agree that a faster decision-making process in relation to such plants would be beneficial.
The proposed incinerators at Ringaskiddy, Co Cork, and near Duleek, Co Meath, have had to undergo a twin-track approval process that requires planning permission as well as approval from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Cork project was also subjected to a separate inquiry undertaken by the Health and Safety Authority (HSA).
While the process is designed to ensure all issues are addressed, it does not facilitate potential developers in that they have to prepare for a twin-track - and sometimes triple-track - process which has, in Indaver's case, taken almost six years and cost more than €12 million.
Nor does it facilitate groups such as the Meath-based No Incinerator Alliance which has spent years attending inquiries, public meetings, hiring experts and ultimately supporting a Supreme Court case against planning permission.
The alliance must now consider taking a legal case, which may become another Supreme Court case, against the EPA decision.
Other European cities can build incinerators in built-up areas, engaging with the regulatory processes, inside a two-year period. So while yesterday's announcement represents final approval by the State's regulatory authorities, Indaver is still awaiting the Supreme Court's decision on a challenge to the planning process in relation to the Meath plant and a High Court judgment on the Ringaskiddy plant.
Indaver first carried out a site selection process for the Meath incinerator in 1999. It lodged a planning application in January 2001 and a waste licence application with the EPA the following December.
But the EPA is not allowed to consider planning matters, while the planning system is not allowed to consider issues relating to the environmental aspects of the facilities. So each of the two facilities had to undergo separate inquiries with appeals and ultimately court challenges.
Yesterday the No Incinerator Alliance said it believed the planning and environmental issues should not have been separated. Indaver simply said it was dealing with the system that was in place.
The Cork application for planning permission came in November 2001 and that proposal has been about one year behind the Meath project ever since. In Cork, the plant also had to undergo a risk assessment by the HSA which took six months to prepare and was submitted by Indaver in January 2002. Despite a request for additional information, it approved the project by March 2002. Chase, the Cork Harbour Alliance for a Safe Environment group, has appealed to the High Court in relation to planning permission for the Ringaskiddy plant.