Madam, - Two sensible policy decisions in one week must constitute a record of some kind.
The first, the granting of a draft licence for a toxic waste incinerator in Ringaskiddy, shows that at long last we are beginning to encompass thermal treatment as one element in our strategy for dealing with waste.
Provided that the plant operates to the highest current standards, then this will prove to be an unalloyed good move and it demonstrates that we are capable of taking action to deal with our problems and not simply export them.
The second, planning permission for an on-shore treatmentplant for the Corrib gas field, is also to be welcomed, for two reasons.
One, it will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions if it supplants our solid-fuel fired power stations, and, two, it will reduce our dependency on supplies of natural gas from the North Sea and further afield.
At the moment, an accident or a terrorist bomb could cut off virtually all our energy at a stroke.
However, the insistence on piping the Corrib gas all over the country is misguided in the extreme and should be reconsidered by Government at the earliest opportunity.
The best use of Corrib gas lies in electricity generation at or close to landfall and not in being burnt in small inefficient domestic boilers in the major towns and suburbs.
Thus MEP Marian Harkin's call in your newspaper for Corrib gas to be made more widely available only compounds the folly of frittering away this resource.
We should be investing in building up the national electricity grid so that it will be in a fit state to be coupled to sources of renewable electricity such as wind farms. - Yours, etc.,
Prof JOHN SIMMIE, Chemistry Dept., National University of Ireland, Galway.
Madam, - Far more crucial and intrusive in people's lives and health than the EU crisis over Buttiglione are the policies being sold to our Government by the major players in the waste industry. Ringaskiddy is passed OK for a draft licence and Carranstown could follow. Can I expect a similar explosion of correspondence from Ms Creighton and the three Reverends about this issue? - Yours, etc.,
RICHARD MURPHY, Coralstown, Co Westmeath.