THE Government will resubmit its application for EU funding for the Mutton Island sewage scheme in Galway Bay, following a broad welcome for compromise proposals to end the impasse.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Howlin, yesterday asked Galway Corporation to consider new plans to locate the plant underground on Mutton Island, without a causeway linking it to the mainland.
The causeway was one of the major sticking points in the scheme, as objectors claimed it might be used in the future as a "Trojan Horse" for further development.
The EU Commission decided last February not to provide funding for the £23 million scheme because of concerns about its impact on birdlife and its visibility in the landscape.
Despite this decision, Mr Howlin's response at the time was that the scheme would go ahead without EU funding.
The Government is now hoping that the compromise proposals will win the Commission's approval.
The compromise will be welcomed by the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht Mr Higgins, who was embarrassed politically when Mr John Cunningham, a leading Galway Labour Party member and a former director of elections for the minister, resigned from the party over the go ahead for the plan.
A spokesman for the Save Galway Bay group, which had threatened legal action over the original plan to build the plant above ground, said the new compromise represented "the basis for going forward" and reaching agreement.
The group had reservations about the possibility of a causeway being built at a later date. It was also concerned that building it on Mutton Island would hamper future expansion of the plant, to cater for Galway's growing population.
"Nevertheless, it represents a victory of sorts. It addresses a lot of our objections on visual amenity, environment, no causeway and so on, the spokesman said. "It's a major climbdown for Brendan Howlin."
The Minister urged Galway Corporation to adopt "a design build and operate" approach to the new scheme, to make up for lost time. This involves asking specialist firms to design, build and operate the plant for a set period. This is common in other countries and faster than the conventional procedure, according to the Department.
Mr Howlin repeated his views that Mutton Island was the best location for a waste treatment plant, "with a deep sea outfall providing the best practicable environmental solution to the discharge of the treated waste . . ."
"Nothing I have heard or read ... suggests to me that there is a realistic alternative location for the treatment plant on which a reasonable level of agreement is likely to be reached locally," he said.
"My aim is to give the city and people of Galway state of the art waste water treatment facilities in the shortest possible time and in a way that will respect legitimate environmental concerns. If the Corporation react positively to my proposal, I believe that Galway can be enjoying these facilities be, fore the end of the year 2000."
The Progressive Democrat TD for Galway West, Mr Bobby Molloy, said there were many unanswered questions Mr Howlin must explain before people could have full confidence in the proposal.
These related to the cost; whether an outfall pipe could be built without the protection of a causeway; future annual running costs and their effect on city service charges; and commercial rates. "Not enough information is yet available," Mr Molloy said.
The Green Party criticised the "unnecessary waste of time and energy" involved in the controversy and blamed Mr Howlin forlocking the Government "into a massive white elephant project which was never going to be built".
The party's environment spokesman, Mr Gerry Boland, said "numerous reports did not favour the Mutton Island site, while the reasons for rejecting the principal alternative site, near Lough Atalia, were unclear."