John Gormley and the Poolbeg Incinerator

It was interesting listening to Gormley's interview on RTE just recently. Sean O'Rourke noted that Gormley has a 'no incinerator here' sticker on his home window. 'How can you be so sure' says Gormley. 'Well, do you have one or not?' 'Yes, but interesting to know that' says Gormley obviously horrified that some media people are looking to see what's he stuck on his windows.....

Anyway, Gormley says he is not politically motivated in trying to scrap or reduce the size of the incinerator, which is totally untrue. Actually, and John, you can go after me for this, you're lying. This is completely politically motivated and anybody who thinks otherwise is using complete SPiN.

The really, really funny thing was Gormley complaining that DCC had pushed through the deal  before the election, so they could say they were following government policy. That's terrible. That's almost as bad as Dick Roche signing off the papers for the N3 bypass before Gormley could take his ministerial seat.

Also, Gormley was on about the fact that he wants to concentrate on MBT plants (Mechanical Biological Treatment) to handle certain waste materials, and indeed opened one only recently in Navan. Who operates this plant? Why Panda do. Is there a connection? No, other than the fact that Panda are one of the companies that raised the recent successful objection to try and halt the site or reduce its capacity.

This is big business talking here, We've got a battle against the existing waste management companies and a new bully on the block in the shape of Covanta. Then we have the political fallout between DCC and John Gormley. And now we have other government agencies involved like the National Development Finance Agency that agreed that the project was good value for money in 2007 and now the ESRI have made Gormley look like a complete mug.

This all stinks, and I mean that in every phrase of the word.