I should like to give two minutes of my time to Deputy Gregory.
Adjournment Debate. - Dublin Hospital Incinerator.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
It was with disbelief I heard the Department of Health had instructed the board of St. James's Hospital, Dublin to build another incinerator, following all the problems associated with existing incinerators, to burn not merely their clinical waste but the clinical waste of all the city hospitals. The present Minister is a medical practitioner by profession and practised in the area where it is proposed to locate this massive new incinerator. I appeal to him not to inflict this project on the people living in the surrounding areas, such as Rialto, Dolphin's Barn, Maryland etc.
How in the name of God could anyone suggest that a hospital site, such as St. James's Hospital, given the number of people who attend the hospital either as in-patients, out-patients or day patients in addition to the number of visitors to the hospital each day and the number of staff, should be chosen as the location for the central clinical waste dump for all the hospitals in Dublin? The proposed project is more like an industrial operation which would be more suited to an industrial estate rather than the grounds of the city's busiest hospital which is surrounded by residential areas. How, for example, will we be able to prevent pollution in relation to the quality of the atmosphere? How many vans and trucks will trundle in and out of the hospital each day carrying waste from the other hospitals? What about the noxious effects on people living in the surrounding areas caused by the burning of PVCs?
Is the Minister aware that the basic problem of medical waste is a biological one? We are anxious to destroy the bugs that can spread disease. Under most circumstances a high temperature incinerator is going to take that problem in its stride but only at the expense of creating several formidable chemical ones because incineration not only takes on the problem of destroying bugs, it takes on the more daunting task of destroying plastics.
When plastics are burned several things can happen. First, any metal, such as the toxic metal cadmium which is often added to plastics as either a pigment or as a stabiliser, will be liberated from the otherwise stable plastic matrix as the plastic is burned away. The metals — indestructible by any burning or other chemical process — emerge from the stack as gases, tiny particles that can penetrate deep down into the lungs or are captured in the air pollution control devices and leave the facility either in the waste water or the fly ash.
Second, many plastic objects used in hospitals, like intravenous tubing, are made of polyvinyl chloride, PVC, which contains 58 per cent by weight of chlorine. Chlorine, too, is an element and cannot be destroyed. The best that can happen is that it forms hydrochloric acid which is probably the orgin of the frequent complaints of respiratory problems and eye soreness from citizens living near incinerators without acid scrubbers.
I have one specific request to make of the Minister. I ask him to allow the public and their public representatives to participate before he goes ahead with this project to ensure that a decision is taken only after there has been such full debate. That is the least that the public, particularly the communities living in the surrounding areas in this case, are entitled to. I hope the Minister will announce that this is his intention.
Time burns faster than we think. Nevertheless we will give Deputy Gregory two minutes.
I thank my colleague for sharing his time with me. This issue is the source of widespread concern in the communities living in the areas surrounding St. James's Hospital, in particular Kilmainham.
I am only too well aware of the very serious problems which have been caused by the incineration of hospital waste in the middle of heavily populated areas, particularly in the areas where many elderly people live. I live in and represent communities which are affected by emissions of pollutants from incinerator chimneys at the Mater Hospital and Temple Street Hospital. The complaints which have been made by residents there are identical to the complaints which have been made by those affected by the existing incinerator at St. James's Street Hospital. They complain of heavy, black and noxious emissions — this is quite significant — which occur mainly during the night and in the early hours of the morning. Elderly people have been severely affected, particularly those with respiratory complaints. They have become prisoners in their own homes and have been forced to keep doors and windows tightly closed when the incinerator is being used and for hours afterwards.
Hospitals, including St. James's Hospital, have already been prosecuted and fined by the courts in respect of breaches of the Air Pollution Acts. I put it to the Minister that it is ironic that Dublin's leading hospitals are actually damaging the health of people living nearby by incinerating hospital waste which causes severe air pollution. Is it not incredible that Governments spend millions of pounds restoring public buildings which have been damaged by air pollution and refuse to pay for essential alternative methods for the safe disposal of hospital waste?
What is at issue here is the proposal to locate the new central incinerator at St. James's Hospital to dispose of the waste produced at all Dublin hospitals but this would make what is already an intolerable situation unbearable for the residents living in surrounding areas and indeed in the entire city centre. This proposal must be scrapped. The people will not accept it. Alternative methods are available to transport waste out of the city centre to an industrial area where it could be disposed of. May I ask the Minister if he is already considering alternatives as I understand certain proposals have been put to him? May I also ask him if he will meet a deputation from the local residents' committees to hear their views on the issue? I am confident that he would be deeply impressed by them as indeed I was.
I am very pleased to have this opportunity to respond tonight to the very important issue raised by Deputy Byrne and Deputy Gregory. First, I should explain that my Department's technical officers have been examining for some time a number of options for the disposal of hospital waste, including clinical waste, with a view to arriving at the most economic and environmentally acceptable solution. The policy of the hospital authorities is that hospital waste should be segregated into infected and non-infected categories, with the infected waste being incinerated and non-infected waste being sent for disposal by deep burial at tipheads. The two main methods of disposal currently are incineration and burial at tipheads.
It must be recognised that hospitals, by the nature of the medical treatments which are performed in them, will produce waste which is bacteriologically dangerous and, so, must be made safe. The best method of rendering such infectious waste harmless is to raise it to a temperature which will destroy all living organisms. This has traditionally been done in the hospital incinerator. There is no way of avoiding the production of infectious waste from hospitals and so the challenge is to render it safe while not causing pollution. This can be done but it cannot be done cheaply or overnight.
Criticisms have been made from time to time in relation to the arrangements currently in force for the disposal of hospital waste. Some of these criticisms relate to the use of incinerators which are alleged to be defective or inadequate. Many of the hospital incinerators currently in use have been stated to be incapable of reaching the required temperatures for efficient operation. I accept that many of these criticisms are in fact justified. The fact is that many of our hospital incinerators are not geared to the level of performance required to meet today's rigorous standards on a continuous basis. These standards are becoming more demanding year by year in response to society's increasing concern for the environment.
Because of the inability of many of our individual hospital incinerators to meet the required standard my Department consider that the most cost effective and environmentally acceptable solution to the problem appears to be the provision of large centralised incinerators to cater for more than one hospital. A proposal to establish a central incinerator at St. James's Hospital to cater for the clinical waste from all the Dublin hospitals is well advanced. This equipment will consist of mechanical loading, primary combustion chamber to 800 degrees centigrade, secondary combustion chamber to 1,200 degrees centigrade, heat recovery boiler, flue gas scrubbing system, filtration and monitoring of flue gas emissions.
The cost of such a system is such that it could not be provided on each hospital site. Therefore it has been decided to centralise on one hospital site, St. James's Hospital. Tenders are currently being examined from operators who would supply, install and operate such a system together with the collection and transport service from the other Dublin hospitals. The material will be transported in sealed boxes in dedicated closed vans.
Some of the arguments in favour of a central incinerator are as follows: first, the cost of scrubbing, filtration and monitoring on each hospital site would be totally prohibitive, second, heat recovery is possible and valuable, third 24 hour operation is possible leading to cleaner operation and a smaller incinerator and fourth, better management and supervision is possible.
The considerations influencing the choice of St. James's Hospital as the site for a central incinerator for the Dublin hospitals include the following: a building 45 metres high with flues and site road network is already there; St. James's Hospital has a large requirement for heat. An annual saving of £90,000 is possible on the present fuel bill and St. James's Hospital itself is one of the largest producers of clinical waste.
I would like to allay the understandable concern of the local residents in relation to this incinerator. When tenders have been evaluated an environmental impact study, required under EC Directive 85/337, will be completed by Eolas. Subject to a positive finding and approval by St. James's board, planning permission and a licence under the Air Pollution Act will be sought from Dublin Corporation. This planning process will meet the request from Deputy Byrne who referred to the need to allow the public express their views on this proposal.
The full planning process will be gone through even though, as the Deputy probably knows, this may not have been necessary under the consultation process between one statutory agency and another. In this case the full planning process will be gone through; that involves the planning application, the rights of the local residents, as referred to by Deputy Byrne and Deputy Gregory, to be heard, and the whole process right up to An Bord Pleanála to be gone through. That will allow people to express their view on this project.
It must also be remembered that there have been many complaints about the operation of the present hospital incinerator. The proposal for a central incinerator to operate to the highest environmental standards is seen as a green initiative to improve the present situation.
I wish to thank Deputy Byrne for raising this important question. I know that other Deputies, including Deputy Gregory, are also concerned about this issue and I assure the House that every effort is being made by my Department to implement a hospital waste disposal policy which will overcome the difficulties associated with current practices and fully comply with the demanding requirements of modern environmental and other standards.