Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this issue and thank the Minister for being here in person to discuss it. The Minister has seen the reports that Fingal County Council has identified the site at Clonshaugh as the potential site for its sewage treatment plant. I am sure he is familiar also with the concerns of local politicians and of residents' groups. Effectively, what we have here is Fingal County Council choosing the least contentious site for itself because the only residents it will affect around that site are actually Dublin City Council residents in a different council area. This is where the Minister's Department has to step in. When there are two competing interests between Fingal County Council and Dublin City Council, there has to be a higher authority that can adjudicate between the two situations. I know of residents in Darndale, Priorswood and Clonshaugh who are furious with the potential for a Fingal-based plant to impact on their lives.

Most people have always argued for a series of smaller plants, and seven is the number that has been most agreeable. From the point of view of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, does the Minister not believe that to have seven plants would be more environmentally sound and would make more sense? The plant would also impact on a local GAA club, Craobh Chiaráin, and its lands. The idea of having a plant the size of Croke Park at that location is surely environmentally unwise, does not take into account the 10,000 submissions that were made from Fingal residents and certainly does not take into account the 2,500 homes that would potentially be beside this site.

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