The Neverending Story

Paul Murphy blogs ahead of his report tonight on the saga of the Poolbeg Incinerator:

If it seems like we have been have been talking about a municipal incinerator in Dublin for years, it’s because we have been talking about it for years. In 1997, when an incinerator was first proposed, we were recycling only 3% of household waste (the latest figures say that is now 30% and higher for commercial and other waste). The case for an incinerator seemed clear. The plan was that Dublin City Council would work in partnership with a private company, which would design and build a 600,000 tonne incinerator. Work progressed at a snail’s pace; a contract was finally signed in 2007 and site work began in late 2009. But now the snail has stopped. Since May 2010 there has been no site work on the incinerator. Though there is still a case to be made for an incinerator, it is much less clear cut as private firms invest in recycling technologies. There are also questions over the contract with the incinerator provider which obliges Dublin’s four councils to supply a certain amount of waste to the incinerator or pay a penalty.
The project may be stalled but its costs are still mounting. Dublin City council has spent €81m on the project so far, it got about €4.5m back from Covanta the proposed incinerator operator but most of the spending is from the public purse. Slightly over half the money has been spent on buying land, according to council figures supplied this month to Cllr Paddy McCartan, but €29m has gone on consultants.
A consortium of consultants led by RPS was paid a healthy €26m in fees so far. RPS say that they don’t get all of that money and that depending on the year, between 40% and 66% of the money they got for the project is passed on to sub-consultants.
Under the Freedom of Information Act, however, Prime Time obtained invoices paid by Dublin City Council to RPS dating from mid 2004 to Sept 2011. Some of the spending seems quite extraordinary. In the 16 months after the site work stopped, the council paid RPS over €2.6m, even though the project appeared to be at a standstill.
For several years the council was paying the PR wing of consultants RPS over €50,000 every two months as a “Communications Retainer.” That retainer continued to April 2011.
Even more extraordinary is that council figures show the PR spend on the project at €4.3m including a dedicated information office. And this €4.3m is separate from the communications fees paid to RPS.
Whether the incinerator ever gets restarted could depend on the Environment Minister Phil Hogan. He was avowedly anti-incineration when in opposition, but it seems a u-turn is in motion. When he got into power he threw out a tax on incineration that was proposed by his predecessor John Gormley. Now he is reviewing waste collection with a view to introducing something called competitive tendering. This could mean that waste collectors would compete for the right to collect waste in an area but whoever wins the tender gets a local monopoly. Councils may then be able to insert a condition in the tender that says they have the right to direct waste to a particular landfill… or incinerator. Dublin’s councils would be delighted with such a change, they have invested a lot of time and effort in Poolbeg and have said publicly said that competitive tendering would make the incinerator “bankable.”
The four Dublin councils say their interest in the incinerator is driven by “Government policy and to assist Ireland in meeting its obligations under the Waste Framework Directive.” They also say they are “confident that the project will be brought to fruition and that monies expended to date will be recouped through the contract.”
It would certainly save the blushes of the councils if Poolbeg got up and running. Last month Fingal Council cancelled its proposed Nevitt landfill in North Dublin, after spending over €30m on it.
Regarding Poolbeg, factor in land that the council is locked into buying and the spend will rise from the current €81m to around €100m, nearly twice the amount spent on e-voting. If the Poolbeg incinerator were to fail, it would be a big embarrassment indeed.
Paul Murphy