'IF WE bury our heads in the sand, we will be burying our trash in the ground," claimed Scott Whitney, president of Covanta Europe, on Thursday. He is the American who heads up the European arm of the largest incinerator or 'energy-from-waste' operator in the world. He was in Dublin to address the ongoing saga surrounding the building of Ireland's first municipal incinerator at Poolbeg in the capital.

First mooted over a decade ago, the €350m incinerator project is a public/private partnership – between Whitney's firm Covanta Europe, Dublin City Council, and Danish firm Dong Energy – that will have the capacity to process 600,000 tonnes of waste per annum.

Covanta runs 44 'energy-from-waste' plants of various sizes and technologies across the world yet the company claims it has never experienced so much difficulty in any other country where it operates.

Incineration is a fact of life in waste disposal across western society, and it is widely accepted that it does not present any serious health risks. It is seen as a necessary evil among western governments.

A network of incinerators was planned until 2007 when John Gormley became minister for the environment. Gormley had long been a critic of the Poolbeg incinerator as it would have been situated in his own Dublin South East constituency. So in October 2007 Gormley said that a network of incinerators was not required in the state. He claimed that we could get by with just two and there was no need for one in Poolbeg.

Meanwhile, the project successfully worked its way through the planning process; it got approval from An Bord Pleanála, the National Development Finance Agency and the Department of the Environment. It also has permission from the Commission for Energy Regulation to generate electricity.

In December 2008, when the Environmental Protection Agency granted a licence for the facility, Gormley issued a statement. "My personal position as a local resident and public representative in regard to incineration generally, and this facility in particular, is well known and has not changed. However, as minister, I work within a legal framework put in place by the Oireachtas which forbids my intervention," the statement said.

Since then it would appear that Gormley has done everything in his power to halt the project and Whitney alluded to this at Covanta's press briefing last Thursday.

Site clearance work is complete and the company claims that the project will create 500 construction jobs over a three-year period. Two hundred of these jobs could be created within a year if the project was allowed to proceed. The only outstanding issue stopping it from going ahead is the granting of a foreshore licence.

This licence is required for the construction of a water-cooling system and Dublin City Council first applied for it in December 2008. These licences used to be granted by the Department of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries but this responsibility has been transferred to the Department of the Environment.

Paperwork ready for signing

So Gormley has the responsibility in his capacity as minister of signing off on the project that he desperately does not want to see built. It has been reported that the paperwork on the licence is ready for signing and sitting on the minister's desk since January, but no decision has been made to date.

Gormley argues that there are 700 foreshore licence applications waiting to be processed by his department. When asked if he was dragging his heels on the issue, his spokesman said, "I utterly reject this. The department is dealing with a backlog which occurred at an administrative level. This application will be dealt with in exactly the same way as all others. The minister has a quasi-judicial function that must be capable of standing up to scrutiny."

On Friday, Whitney said that work on the incinerator had been at a standstill since 7 May because the foreshore licence had not been granted. Whitney said that his company had never encountered a situation like this in its 30-year history.

Covanta has sought a meeting with Taoiseach Brian Cowen to raise its concerns that its project has jumped through all of Ireland's planning hoops yet has come to a standstill because of Gormley's delay in granting the foreshore licence.

Whitney claimed that Covanta now finds itself in a situation where Gormley, in judging on the foreshore licence, seems to be saying, 'I know you are guilty but I will give you a fair trial before I hang you.'

Gormley argues that Dublin will not produce enough waste for the Poolbeg facility. But a Covanta-commissioned study carried out by Fehily, Timoney & Company refutes this.

As recently as 14 July, the Competition Authority quashed claims made by the Irish Waste Management Agency (IWMA), a body representing private waste management companies, that the project breached competition law.

New draft waste policy

The following day Gormley unveiled a new draft waste policy whereby graduated levies for various waste facilities, including incinerators, would be applied.

Combined with a recent High Court judgement from Justice Liam McKechnie that found Dublin City Council abused its dominant position in the capital's waste market, Gormley claims that these new levies would make the Poolbeg facility economically "unviable".

Covanta argues that Gormley's latest plan would amount to a "punitive" levy on incineration which would be contrary to EU policy.

The controversy surrounding the project is escalating and it could have serious consequences for taxpayers.

Under a 1999 EU Landfill Directive that was transposed into Irish law on 2 July, 2002, specific targets have been set for the reduction of the amount of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill.

Failure to meet these targets would result in heavy fines for the government. The delays to the Poolbeg project will potentially cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of euro as we are in breach of an EU directive that came into force at the start of the year.

Covanta has hinted that it is seeking advice from its lawyers about taking legal action over the delaying tactics that have stalled the project.

With almost 450,000 people unemployed, we can ill-afford to turn up our noses at the construction jobs that Poolbeg would create.

In February, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) published a report in which it was argued that Gormley's policy on waste incineration had "no underlying rationale" and was likely to impose "needless costs on the economy".

Gormley has a policy (outlined in last autumn's Revised Programme for Government) of putting a 30% cap on incineration of municipal waste but the ESRI said, "Arbitrary limits on incineration and consequent expansion of MBT (mechanical and biological treatment) has no place in waste management policy".

Covanta has met with US ambassador Dan Rooney, who is hoping to raise the matter with Gormley in the coming weeks.

Whitney claimed last week that he was aware of other US companies who were starting to look twice at Ireland as a potential destination for foreign direct investment given the delays experienced by Covanta as a result of what it believes is political interference.

An informed source said, "This type of action sends shudders down the spines of investors and Ireland gets classified as a country not to be trusted."