Major health risk posed to public by former Ispat site

Simon Coveney TD (FG) 30/6/08

Government assurances are not accurate, immediate action needed.

The assurances by the Minister for the Environment that the former Irish Ispat site does not pose any health risk to the people of Cork are not accurate based on what we know from reports on the site. I called for the government to immediately make an honest declaration of the facts about the former Irish Ispat site, and then to set out in detail what it is going to do to make the site safe, regardless of cost.

Minister Gormley has assured us that people in Cork will not be exposed to any health risk because of hazardous waste at the site of the former Irish Ispat steel plant in Cork. However based on what we know from several reports about the site, this simply is not the case. His claims are both inaccurate and irresponsible.

We now know, for example, from a environmental report completed last December that on the shoreline of the site there are mercury levels 25 times higher than should require serious intervention, and that an environmental engineer working for the Department requested “emergency treatment immediately” for certain parts of the site.

We have also had junior Minister Máire Hoctor repeatedly telling the Dáil last week, on behalf of Minister Gormley, that no subsurface investigation at the site has taken place. This simply is not true – I have seen reports of several such investigations.

It is past time for Minister Gormley to make an honest declaration of the facts about the site, warts and all, and then to set out in detail what the Government is going to do to make the site safe. There should be no budgetary constraints on the process of making this site safe; it is too serious for that. The Minister needs to outline a plan to prevent further environmental damage and to re-assure people living and working in the vicinity, that he is doing everything possible to make the site safe.

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