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Harbour incinerator decision deferred for a seventh time

By: 
Catherine Shanahan - Irish Examiner

The longest-running planning saga in An Bord Pleanála’s history is set to drag on after it deferred, for the seventh time, a decision on plans for an incinerator in the Cork Harbour area.

The board was to decide this week on whether to give allow an application from waste management company Indaver Ireland Ltd to build a 240,000 tonnes per annum waste-to-energy facility at Ringaskiddy.

However, a spokesperson for the planning authority confirmed the new decision date is December 5.

The spokesman said it was his understanding that the only other major project with a timeline comparable to the Indaver case was the Shell/Corrib gas project.

“There are really only two projects with this kind of trajectory — Indaver and Shell,” the spokesman said. “They are the longest- running [major projects] in the board’s experience.”

Gas was found off the Mayo coast in 1996 and, 19 years later, the first delivery of gas was taken from the Corrib field. The first planning application in relation to the project was lodged in 2000.

The first planning application in relation to the Ringaskiddy incinerator was lodged in 2001 and the second in 2008. A third planning application was lodged in January last year and led to an oral hearing in April/May with ABP decision due by mid July.

That date was missed, as were subsequent decision dates of October 26, January 24 2017, March 22, August 10, September 12.

A decision of October 27 was then set, but An Bord Pleanála confirmed yesterday that date had been changed to December 5.

The Bord Pleanála spokesman said the Indaver case was unusual in its “sheer super complexity” as well as in the number of new issues raised, but new issues were less of factor in its progress than the complexity.

Posted Date: 
26 October 2017