Race to rezone update

dublin | environment | opinion/analysis Tuesday November 02, 2004 01:21 by pc

Oral Hearing over industrial waste facility in St Annes Park of all places

Decision to happen by the 16th December 2004.

St Anne's Residents Association were delighted to present their case to an Oral hearing of An Bord Pleanala. The hearing lasted three days and a decision is expected by 16th December 2004. At that hearing Dublin City Council were represented by a full legal team, including a barrister and solititor who conducted questioning of the residents association's witnessess. There have to be questions about the intrinsic fairness of a system where, you can have have barristers cross examine residents groups in a quasi-legal setting. In the interests of fairness, if a corporate body proposes a developemnt, then personnel from that corporate body should be the ones to stand over and defend their proposal, rather than have trained legal professionals do their job for them. As part of the evidence submitted by DCC, one of their planners suggested that a public park would be a suitable location to consider locating a waste disposal facility, while a second witness for DCC said that Ireland's Environmental Protection Agency, The Environment Agency for England and Wales, even Irish hospitals who instigate precautionary safeguards for cancer patients were all misguided in applying the "precautionary principle" to mitigate against exposure to potentially lethal bioaerosols - which are also emitted by DCC's current waste operations at the site. Dublin City Council also admitted that they were presently operating a waste facility in St Anne's Park which is not permitted under the current zoning designation of the site!