Gormley to meet the US Ambassador to Ireland ... Ambassador questions why 600 jobs are being held up

An excellent summary of this is provided by David Corcoran over on politics.ie. The Irish Independent this morning reports that the American Ambassador, Dan Rooney, is demanding a meeting with Environment Minister John Gormley over the stalling of the construction of the Poolbeg Incinerator. The company awarded the contract to build the incinerator Covanta have been expressing frustration at the awarding of the foreshore licence. The Independent piece suggests that Cowen may in fact meet with Covanta executives when he visits New York in two weeks to discuss the issue.

So, there appears to be some background issues at play here. Firstly, Dublin City Council awarded a contract for an incinerator to be built in Poolbeg by Covanta. The incinerator is big, very big in fact, it can handle 600,000 tonnes a year.

Private firms (the companies that collect waste - they're mostly represented by a group called the IWMA) are against the incinerator, they argue the plant is too big, and they also point out they have invested in means to handle the waste they collect. This waste they collect is an issue too. Dublin City Council lost a case recently where they tried to say that they own the waste even after it's collected. They lost this case, private firms when they collect the waste then own it.

But these private firms have their own means of dealing with the waste, and the court case effectively means Dublin City Council can't tell the private collectors to send their waste to Poolbeg. Yet Dublin City Council has guaranteed to supply 320,000 tonnes of waste to Poolbeg, and will have to compensate Covanta if this minimum threshold is not met. It would take all of the waste in Dublin (and some) to satisfy the Poolbeg incinerator, but as we can see, Dublin City Council don't appear to have any waste to give them. Covanta is attempting to source the other 280,000 tonnes needed to bring Poolbeg to full capacity.

Poolbeg when operating at full capacity will produce enough power for 50,000 homes. Proponents of the plant say it will allow Ireland to substantially reduce dependence on landfill as required by the EU Landfill Directive. Opponents of Poolbeg (including John Gormley) say that Poolbeg will reduce dependence on recycling - with so much waste needing to go to address the capacity demands, much of what is produced will be burnt regardless. John Gormley says the target of 70% recylables will not be possible if Poolbeg needs to be fed.

John Gormley (even this morning on Morning Ireland) argued that Poolbeg is too big and the means of dealing with the waste in Poolbeg isn't ideal. Gormley says that MBT (Mechnical Biological Treatment) is much more efficient means of dealing with waste. Gormley has said the construction of Poolbeg is contrary to what his policy is for dealing with waste in this country.

So, the IWMA made a complaint to the Competition Authority about Dublin City Council acting in an (allegedly) anti-competitive manner. I spokes to a spokesperson in the Competition Authority this morning who said that it's a matter of public record that a complaint was made by the Irish Waste Management Association about (alleged) anti-competitive behaviour by DCC over the Pooling Incinerator.

And so back to the stalling. A contract has been signed between Dublin City Council and Covanta to build the incinerator. Construction was supposed to start in 2008 and Covanta at the time said it was confident that all the licensing issues would be sorted promptly. A final piece in the puzzle is the foreshore licence which once issued by Gormley will allow the incinerator to fully proceeed. Gormley is being accused of deliberately holding it up in order to prevent the plant from being built.

Stephen Collins in the Irish Times last Saturday wrote a piece critical of John Gormley on the matter. Fine Gael too have criticised Gormley (mainly in response to the piece by Collins on Saturday), Phil Hogan called on Gormley to be removed from influence or decision making on the issue. "It is time for the Taoiseach Brain Cowen TD to implement Government policy and to insist that his cabinet colleagues are not making decisions that demonstrate a clear conflict of interest." was how Phil Hogan put it in a statement at the weekend.

So Covanta seem to be getting a bit tetchy of late - recently warning that 600 jobs are at risk - Gormley says many more jobs than that will be created by him if his waste strategy proceeds. Scott Whitney of Covanta has criticised the lack of transparency by the Irish Government over this issue. He is quoted as saying, "We are at a loss to understand why the Government appears unable, or unwilling, to ensure that its regulatory systems operate in a transparent and predictable manner so as to enable a project such as this, having national importance, to move ahead as speedily as possible".

A lot is at stake over the waste incinerator, whether it's built or not, the taxpayer is going to pay dearly for what's going on.