The EPA's national hazardous waste management plan published in July 2001 identifies a need for a thermal treatment facility for hazardous waste in order to ensure national self-sufficiency in managing hazardous waste which cannot prevented.
Local authority waste management plans for the Dublin, north-east, Connacht, midlands and south west regions provide, inter alia, for five thermal treatment facilities to recover energy from municipal waste that cannot otherwise be re-used or recycled. A proposed waste management plan for the south east region, which currently is subject to public consultation, provides for a further such facility.
It is open to the private sector to bring forward proposals for thermal treatment facilities on a commercial basis, and two such facilities are currently proposed, for location in Meath and Cork. Such proposals, if progressed, may have implications for the provision of thermal treatment capacity under local authority regional plans.