The completion of a Health and Safety Authority (HSA) report on the proposed hazardous waste incinerator for Ringaskiddy in Cork Harbour, due at the end of the month, will almost certainly lead to a debate which may result in the proposal being turned down at local authority level.
However, this does not signal the end of the line for Indaver, the Belgian company seeking to build the €95 million (£74.8 million) facility, which would be the first of its kind in Ireland.
As the debate on the proposal gathers momentum in Cork against the backdrop of a looming election, the signs are that the political will does not exist at present to allow the project go ahead, despite the fact that a waste management crisis in the Cork region is demanding urgent attention.
Landfill space is running out, volumes of waste are increasing, seemingly in proportion to the inability of existing sites to cope with them, and the available evidence suggests that without a robust carrot and stick approach, the recycling ethic will never take hold in the area.
Local politicians and TDs are now being asked by constituents to state plainly and simply where they stand on incineration in general and hazardous waste incineration in particular.
The issue is a thorny one, especially for representatives whose catchment includes Ringaskiddy, where the plant would operate against the wishes of the local community.
It now appears that a get-out mechanism has presented itself to the politicians and that they will invoke it in order to pass the final decision to someone else.
In addition to the HSA report, which will examine the safety aspects of locating a hazardous waste incinerator in an area like Ringaskiddy, the planners at Cork County Council now have available a plethora of expert reports and analyses on the application which Indaver lodged last November.
The HSA document will pronounce on issues such as the storage of solvents etc, and its publication later this month will arm the council with all it needs to come to a decision.
That, at least, was the theory until the question arose as to whether, under the Cork County Development Plan, there is provision for such a facility to be constructed in Ringaskiddy.
The argument gaining momentum now is that the plan designates Ringaskiddy for port-related industries and major water uses and that the Indaver proposal fails to meet those criteria.
While Indaver says this is open to debate, there can be no denying that the 1,000-acre Ringaskiddy Industrial Estate, for which a vast cross-country water scheme was laid on at enormous public expense in the 1970s, had specific industrial users in mind.
If the Indaver proposal is judged not to be one of them, then, for the local authority to give the project the go-ahead, a material contravention of the development plan would have to be agreed by the council members.
In the current political climate in Cork, they are unlikely to do so.
One point which will be argued strongly by the applicant is that an annual water requirement of 30 million gallons does qualify it as a major water user.
The council's decision on the planning application is due by February 28th. Initially, the decision will be a management function.
If the county manager, Mr Maurice Moloney, decides the application has no standing within the confines of the plan, he may refuse it, in which case the members will not be consulted.
But if he decides it should be granted permission, although technically not a port-related or major water user, then the members must be consulted for a contravention of the plan to be agreed.
In this event, the council would have to advertise its intention, the public's views would be canvassed, and a public debate on the proposal would begin all over again.
If, as seems likely, the council members vote not to contravene the plan, then the issue will go to An Bord Pleanála following an appeal by the company. Given the direction of policy on incineration in Ireland (both the EPA and Forfás, the national policy advisory body on such matters, are in favour of thermal treatment as an option in waste management), Indaver would be more than happy for the issue to go before the board, and there is every reason to believe it would succeed there.
Whatever happens, by the time a final decision is made, Indaver's plans will have been subjected to the most intense scrutiny at a number of levels.
Indaver's general manager in Ireland, Mr John Ahern, says all of this would still leave the company on target to begin operating by 2005 as planned.
The Green Party is adamantly opposed to incineration and its representative on Cork Corporation, Mr Dan Boyle, believes there should be a moratorium on the question for the foreseeable future.
The Greens also take the view that the Waste Management (Amendment) Act which gives local authority managers the power to make decision in this area when elected representatives fail to do so, should be repealed. Fine Gael's Simon Coveney and Batt O'Keeffe of Fianna Fáil have also publicly rejected the Ringaskiddy proposal.
Thermal treatment of waste, however, has been written into official policy in Ireland. Ringaskiddy will be its first major test.