LETTER: Public health needs to be safeguarded

SIR – I appreciate the Cllr Joe Carroll is disappointed that that planning permission for the controversial plastic factory in Skibbereen has been quashed in the High Court. 
I would however like to correct his statement that the ‘Taoiseach turned the sod for a similar factory in Sligo.’ In fact the Taoiseach turned the sod on a stretch of the N4 being upgraded near Sligo; and on the same day he announced that GW Plastics plan to expand their injection-moulding operations in Sligo.

The injection-moulding plant in Sligo had been run by Avenue Mouldings for 30 years, when it was acquired by GW in 2017. They make end-user product, and run a very different operation to that which RTP Company (who would trade in Ireland as Daly Products) had planned for Skibbereen.

RTP Company’s plan is to bring in raw polymer as small pellets called nurdles, melt them down and, under heat and pressure, add heavy metals and chemicals to them, turn then back into nurdles and ship them out again.

An Bord Pleanala’s own inspector stated that ‘the absence in the planning application of specific information on potential air pollutants; and a relevant assessment of the same, precludes the applicant from demonstrating that public health would be safeguarded.’ 

The applicant had also not been asked to apply for an integrated pollution control licence, so how then would regulation happen?

I agree with the Cllr that jobs are important.

Our health is also important!

With kind regards,
Fiona Vincent,

Skibbereen.