John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

My Department assumed responsibility for a range of foreshore functions in the middle of January 2010. The foreshore application for the Poolbeg waste to energy project is one of 700 applications which now fall to be dealt with by my Department. The relevant file for the Poolbeg project was forwarded to my Department on 25 January 2010. The foreshore licence element of the Poolbeg project relates to the cooling water intake and discharge pipe. An application for the licence was originally made by Dublin City Council in December 2008. A preliminary assessment of the application for a foreshore licence has been carried out and a valuation of the site to be occupied by the applicant has been also completed.

As this is the first ever case under which the terms of both sections 226 and 227 of the Planning Acts were being used, which disapply certain provisions of the Foreshore Acts, the then consent authority, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, sought legal advice as to the relationship between planning legislation and the consent process under the Foreshore Acts. The initial advice has since been forwarded to my Department, and further advices have been more recently provided on this complex issue.

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