Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support the amendment. I am one of the few people in the room who has worked in Aughinish Alumina, as did my former colleague. We were regularly paid to have our cars washed and polished due to chemical spills that took place within the confines of the island. Let us be under no illusions. On the positive side, Aughinish Alumina is a good employer and provides many jobs for the people of Limerick. On the negative side, the plant would house several Croke Parks, and the red mud ponds to which Senators have referred would house three or four Croke Parks. That is the amount of industrial waste we are talking about.

I worked in the fire and security service there. Part of our job was to put on chemical suits and look after employees when there was a spill. Every 200 metres on the site there is a shower in case a employee is splashed with caustic soda, which is brought in by the truckload every day. If a person is splashed with caustic soda, it will burn right through. Employees had to stand naked under a shower for 20 minutes until they were collected by an ambulance and brought to the medical centre. There were people who lost their eyesight in at least one eye. There have been several spills on the site.

The red mud ponds are highly toxic. The plant is built on a limestone base. If the man in the Visitors' Gallery could speak, he would confirm what I am saying. At one stage, we were building a tower on Aughinish and the builders who came to lay foundations found their explosives had no effect on the limestone. When the blast took place, it just filtered out through the limestone cracks. The first mud pond was covered in a rubber lining to stop any leakage. If the lining goes, we have no idea where the toxins from the red mud will go and where in the Aughinish area they will be deposited. It is a large farming area. There is a serious concern, particularly regarding issues such as bonding. I do not want to play down the seriousness of the problem or falsely accuse Aughinish Alumina of any damage, although there are environmental questions that must be answered and that have not been dealt with since the plant opened.

The people tabling the amendment are doing so in good faith and the issues must be investigated fully. While I do not want Aughinish Alumina's reputation to be damaged any more than necessary, if it must answer, let us not have another Merck Sharp & Dohme. In that case, a man and his family were ruined and his animals killed before, eventually, somebody stood up and said he was telling the truth. I am not sure how many people are suffering financial damage in the Aughinish area. I have seen photographs of animals that died of God knows what. I remember some geese being brought from Canada and a big advertisement appearing inThe Irish Timessaying Aughinish Alumina had flown the geese 6,000 miles in order to create 1,000 jobs. Although I may be wrong, as far as I recall, caustic soda burned the feet off the geese and they had to be put down.

The moment one walks through the gate of the plant, one is immediately aware of the fact that one is in a highly dangerous environment. Everything about the day's work is controlled by the knowledge that one is exposed to caustic soda. The process of extracting alumina from bauxite requires thousands of gallons of caustic soda, as well as sulphuric acid, lime, and sodium aluminium fluoride. Between all those substances and the red mud that is going out, there are some serious chemicals lying around in an open area. At one stage, Aughinish Alumina explored the possibility of using the red mud to make concrete blocks, which failed. For years, it has been trying to find something to do with the red mud waste, which will be left there like nuclear waste for generations. I support Senator Mary Ann O'Brien.