PRIVATE WASTE companies have said they will create 235 full-time jobs if the capacity of the planned 600,000 tonne incinerator at Poolbeg, Dublin, is halved.
Continuing uncertainty over whether the incinerator would go ahead was “killing investment” in alternative waste facilities, the Irish Waste Management Association has said.
Work on the incinerator began in December 2009, but has been suspended since last May.
Greenstar commercial director Jerry Dempsey said the incinerator promoters Dublin City Council and US firm Covanta had “almost a Taliban-like attitude” of “blind fundamentalism” in their pursuit of the clearly oversized incinerator. “It doesn’t make sense; they don’t have the tonnage for Poolbeg and the taxpayer is underwriting all of this,” he said.
Greenstar, Panda, Oxigen and a combination of smaller companies in the Dublin region together have planning permission and licences for facilities which would create 670,000 tonnes of waste treatment capacity which has not been built due to the incinerator uncertainty, association spokesman Brendan Keane said.
These facilities and the 200,000 tonne incinerator built by Indaver at Duleek, Co Meath, which was not yet operational, would generate 235 long-term jobs and 500 jobs in construction and amount to an investment of €245 million, Mr Keane said.
A spokeswoman for Dublin City Council said it hopes construction of the Poolbeg plant will resume “as quickly as possible”. It was correctly sized to meet Dublin’s waste needs, she said.
