I am delighted on my sixth attempt to have his opportunity to raise the matter in the House. It arises out of a disastrous fire at the UMP meat plant in Ballaghaderreen about one and a half years ago, in January 1992. It is estimated that the cost of the damage amounted to £50 million, £35 million of which related to the destruction of almost 12,000 tonnes of boned out frozen intervention beef.
A relatively small amount of meat was destroyed in the fire. In addition, only a small amount was deemed suitable for removal for rendering. Therefore, about 10,000 tonnes of charred and water and smoke damaged meat had to be disposed of quickly.
Emergency discussions on disposal of this meat took place immediately. Party to these discussions were Roscommon County Council, the Western Health Board, the Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry and in particular the then Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Woods, who visited the site and promised that "everything possible would be done on the hour and by the hour" to deal with the consequences of the fire.
Two days after the fire was extinguished the meat and debris were removed to a temporary site at Rahanmore, near Kilbeggan, County Westmeath. This gave rise to an immediate local protest as the site was a disused sand pit. Under threat of a High Court injunction dumping at the site was stopped after about 400 tonnes has been buried there.
It was then suggested and widely felt that the remainder of the meat and debris would be brought to the purpose built landfill containment dump at Ballydonagh, Athlone. Instead it was announced that a new site had been found at Cregga Hill, near Strokestown. We were told then that the site has been examined by the county council, by the health board and a senior official of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, all of whom found it suitable. It is very difficult to understand how it could have been deemed suitable given the location of the Cregga site which is one of the highest elevations in County Roscommon with a highly sensitive, surrounding environment consisting of the Killglass Lakes, which are part of the Shannon system, approximately three miles to the east.
Perhaps even more sensitive is the location approximately one mile south of the site, Lisheen Lake, which is used as an unfiltered source of water supply for the County Roscommon north east regional water scheme at present serving approximately 100 households. On the northern and western side of the site, only a few hundred metres off, is the large commercial Laragon Stone Quarry where large-scale blasting takes place regularly. These blasting operations, of their nature and because of their proximity to the site, cause underground disturbances, like seismic movements that are bound to affect the site.
There have been many local protests about this dump since it was established. At a very minimum, locals felt that some form of environmental impact assessment should have been carried out on the site, given its very sensitive nature, before such a location would be used for this dump. I might point out that it is the largest meat dump of its kind in Europe. Last summer many surrounding water supplies were found to have been contaminated. It is difficult to link the contamination with the dump. Nevertheless, this contamination has never been noticed before. Naturally it gave rise to great concern locally in relation to health.
The Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Deputy Browne, was the first member of the Government to recognise the difficulty this is causing local people, on which I might compliment him. Indeed, he visited the site on 19 April last when he had an opportunity of seeing its location, elevation, its surrounding environment and its contents. All the relevant points were put to the Minister of State on the day he met local residents, myself and others. However, the matter raised repeatedly with him was the lack of local consultation beforehand — perhaps that was a difficulty — and afterwards.
Will the Minister of State agree to finance an environmental impact assessment of this site so that we can determine whether it is having a damaging effect on the surrounding environment.