John Kelly (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I compliment my colleagues, Senators Landy and Whelan on bringing up this issue. It is very important and in some of the cases cited the issues are very serious. It is quite amazing that the EPA does not seem to have the power to insist on higher standards for the protection of people’s health. The Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA shut down the accident and emergency department in Roscommon hospital because it was not safe enough. We are not asking for that here. We want the EPA to insist on higher standards to be put in place in this plant in Portlaoise.

Years ago, in my own town of Ballaghaderreen, there was a problem with a landfill site that was too close to people’s homes. There were regular methane emissions from it. The locals were getting sick. They went through serious pain and suffering. The county council denied for years that there were any emissions. The EPA came in but all it did was log the complaint and said that it would deal with it. It had to be pushed kicking and screaming to go to court and fine the county council €1,200 or €1,400 and continue as normal. Many people have serious reservations about the independence of the EPA. It is there to protect the people, not local authorities or big businesses, as in the Portlaoise case.

Senator Quinn mentioned fracking. I have not heard any Minister say we will not progress with fracking in this country. The best response we can get is that there will be an EPA report. No matter how many reports on fracking are commissioned, nobody will definitively prove that once a drill is stuck in the ground, which drills for hundreds of metres, that water will not be contaminated. There are also problems associated with pylons and wind turbines. Senators Whelan, Landy and I have raised this issue over the past three years. The EPA has done nothing to protect people from these problems. The message seems to be job creation at any cost.

The EPA is supposedly an oversight body but we need another body to oversee it because An Bord Pleanála and the EPA are playing ball with one another and An Bord Pleanála is not independent. Many agencies are set up to protect people’s health but jobs seem to come first and health second.