AN UPDATE on the status of the contract between Dublin City Council and the developers of the Poolbeg incinerator will be given to city councillors tonight.
Councillors have called on the city manager to answer questions on the matter following claims made last week by RTÉ that the contract for the 600,000-tonne capacity incinerator was to run out yesterday and that there was a break clause that would allow either side to walk away from the deal.
Local Labour councillor Kevin Humphreys yesterday said that the council should make the contract publicly available to end the confusion and speculation on the issue.
“It is only right that the elected councillors and taxpayers have an opportunity to inspect this contract as it could cost the taxpayers up to €2 billion over the life of the contract.”
Mr Humphreys said he wanted to know whether the council could walk away from the contract with developers Covanta without incurring any further costs or if the council could renegotiate the contract to cut the size of the plant.
“I believe the contract should be terminated. The residents of Ringsend and Sandymount have been living under the threat of this development for the last 10 years,” he said.
Fianna Fáil councillor for the southeast area Jim O’Callaghan also wanted clarity brought to the issue.
“It is very difficult to form an assessment as to what is the current status of the project when we’ve never been shown the contract.”
He was not in favour of the incinerator, he said, but the focus must be on the financial consequences of either continuing with or breaking from the project.
“Irrespective of one’s views on the incinerator, it is unacceptable when it is such a large-scale investment for the State to have the city council and the Minister for the Environment effectively in a Mexican stand-off with each other,” Mr O’Callaghan said.
Minister for the Environment John Gormley, who is opposed to the incinerator, has not spoken directly on the issue since the Prime Time programme on the contract aired last Thursday.
Following the programme Dublin City Council issued a statement in which it said it remained in a contractual position for the incinerator and any attempt to extricate itself from the contract would have financial consequences.
“The Prime Time report on the project aired last night [Thursday September 2nd] stated that the council could ‘walk away with no cost’ . . . This is factually incorrect,” the statement said.
RTÉ has issued a statement denying it made such a claim.
“Dublin County Council is wrong. In the report by RTÉ’s Environment Correspondent Paul Cunningham, at no point was it said that the council could walk away with no cost.
“In an interview, Labour councillor Kevin Humphreys said ‘it looks like’ the council could walk away with no cost and ‘if it is possible’ then that’s what should be done,” the statement said.
“The council should have explained that it was an interviewee, rather than Prime Time which made the statement and that the comment was qualified,” RTÉ added.
