Environment | Dominick Donnelly

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Cllr. Donnelly welcomes €1.4 million to ensure safety of South Cork water supplies

Published April 15, 2009 Environment , Water Leave a Comment

23 February 2009

Green Party Local Election candidate Cllr. Dominick Donnelly has welcomed €1,424,000 to improve water quality in local group water schemes in South Cork. The Rural Water Programme for 2009 allocates funding from the Department of Environment to prevent pollution, improve sewerage schemes and upgrade existing water supplies.

Cllr. Donnelly said: “Despite cutbacks the Green Party managed to increase water funding by 19 per cent in Budget 2009. This is to ensure the future security of our vital water supplies.

“It’s very easy to take for granted the clean, reliable water supply from our taps, but as the people in Galway well know, if anything goes wrong it can be disastrous for the whole community.

“I warmly welcome this funding, particularly for the community owned group water schemes, which provide water for homes, farms and local businesses. This funding will also help keep our rivers and lakes pollution-free.”

Rural Water programme 2009 provides:

· €100 million for upgrading rural water supplies

· €67 million to improve water quality in group schemes with private sources, such as rivers, lakes and boreholes

· €5 million for new group water schemes and for extensions of existing schemes to cater for growing rural communities

· €29 million for improvements to smaller public water and sewerage schemes

· €40 million will be spent on new water treatment facilities

Cllr. Donnelly welcomes An Bord Pleanála’s decision on Dublin incinerator

Published April 15, 2009 Cork Harbour , Environment , Incineration Leave a Comment

16^th February 2009

Hopefully the same arguments will be used in the Ringaskiddy incinerator case

Commenting on the recent decision by An Bord Pleanála to reject planning permission for an incinerator in Rathcoole in Co. Dublin, Green Party candidate for Cork County Council and Passage West Town Council in the local elections, Cllr. Dominick Donnelly said: “I welcome the decision by An Bord Pleanála to reject planning permission for the Rathcoole incinerator, and I hope that this is an indication that there has been a change in the mindset in the board. The two Ringaskiddy incinerators are before the board for decision at the moment, and this recent decision gives cause for optimism that they will reject the Ringaskiddy incinerators also.”

Cllr. Donnelly continued: “The most interesting aspect of this decision is that all three reasons given by the board for the rejection all apply equally to Ringaskiddy. First of all the incinerator is not part of the local authority’s waste management plan, and this was made clear in Cork County Council’s own report on this proposal. The second reason the board rejected the incinerator in Rathcoole was to do with traffic on the N7, adjacent to the proposed site. With the Port of Cork already having been refused planning in Ringaskiddy due to lack of capacity on the N28 and in the Jack Lynch Tunnel, hopefully An Bord Pleanála will use the same argument to reject Indaver. The third reason for the board’s rejection was that the proposal wanted to build the incinerator in a quarry, and that because of this the board were not convinced that the emissions from the incinerator would not pose a threat to the surrounding population. With Cork Harbour being effectively a basin, and it being prone to thermal inversions (localised fog) in which the emissions would remain locally, this argument applies equally to Ringaskiddy. There have been about three thermal inversions in Cork Harbour in the last week alone, which, if the incinerators were in operation, would have caused the harbour communities to be polluted with their emissions.”

“I hope that this is the beginning of the end for Indaver’s ridiculous plans to build two incinerators in Cork Harbour. It has been a long hard battle for the harbour communities, particularly those of us directly involved with CHASE, but there are signs that all the toil and perseverance has been worthwhile to preserve Cork Harbour as a wonderful place to live” Cllr. Donnelly concluded.