CLARE county councillors are considering whether they should seek a judicial review of planning procedures in the case of an incinerator proposed for the Syntex pharmaceutical plant in Clarecastle, near Ennis.
Reflecting an intensive campaign against the plan by Care for Clare and other objectors, most of the councillors say they are opposed to it on health grounds. A minority, however, supports it, to protect jobs at Syntex.
At a demonstration in Ennis on Saturday Ms Lena Quinn, spokeswoman for Care for Clare, welcomed "the seriousness with which local councillors are considering this issue" and encouraged them to go ahead with a judicial review.
She said the aim of the protest campaign was "to make Syntex, the Environmental Protection Agency and the local councillors clearly understand that under no circumstances will we accept an incinerator in Clarecastle."
Care for Clare has called on Syntex to withdraw both its planning application to Clare County Council and its licence application to the EPA, and to install a "closed circuit waste management system" with no environmental impact.
The legal issue which the councillors may test in the High Court concerns the separation of powers between planning authorities and the EPA in dealing with industrial processes such as this one.
Under the 1993 legislation which established the EPA, planning authorities are confined to dealing with such issues as the design of a building and its traffic impact, but not its potential to cause environmental pollution.
This is exclusively a matter for the EPA, and there is no pro vision for appeals to An Bord Pleanala against EPA decisions.
One Clare councillor, quoted by the Clare Champion, said it was "ludicrous" that the planning authority should have no role in relation to public health, adding that this alone would be grounds for a judicial review.
The county solicitor has been requested to advise on the matter.
Syntex insists that the incinerator would pose no threat to public health or the environment because its emissions of cancer causing dioxins would be negligible.
