An Irish Planning Students Blog

THE DUBLIN city engineer has rejected claims by Minister for the Environment John Gormley that the taxpayer could face bills of €18 million a year for the next 20 years if the Poolbeg incinerator goes ahead as planned.

The Minister was speaking after the publication yesterday of a report commissioned by private waste contractors which claimed the 600,000 tonne incinerator’s capacity should be halved.

The contract with the incinerator firms Covanta and Dong requires the local authorities to supply 320,000 tonnes of waste annually to the plant. If they do not, they have to compensate the consortium at a rate of €100 for every tonne not supplied.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio yesterday, Mr Gormley said the shortfall in the amount of waste that is likely to be available for incineration could see the council left with a multimillion euro bill every year of the operating life of the plant.

“Even the capacity they have promised to deliver, 320,000 tonnes, again is far too large, if you look at what can be delivered now and into the future it looks as if it could be half of that.

“If that is the case we are looking at a contingent liability and it could run into about €18 million a year for about 20 years. That is something the taxpayer simply cannot afford.”

(more…)

Rents have fallen to their lowest level in a decade to an average of €771 a month, the latest property report revealed today.

Housing website Daft.ie recorded a 4 per cent fall in the last three months with the Dublin market hit harder than anywhere else.

Rents fell by more than 18 per cent in the year to October 2009, with average monthly rent across the country now down from more than €1,000 last year to under €775 last month.

Dublin continued to show the biggest falls in rent coming down by 5 per cent over the last three months, the report found. It said rents in Galway remained static, while rents in Cork and Limerick cities fell by 2.5 per cent.

Ronan Lyons, economist at Daft.ie, warned that the continued drop could disrupt the Government’s plan for bad-bank Nama.

“These recent falls in rent have pushed the average rental income back to levels last seen in 2000, which has much wider implications,” he said. “Nama was predicated on rents and yields remaining high between now and 2020.”

Mr Lyons warned that the bad-bank plan was based on property priced growing by 10 per cent and that the housing market would be less attractive to investors if rental values continued to fall.

“Currently the yield on residential property has risen by just 0.1 per cent in the last year, to 3.4 per cent on average, compared to the Nama benchmark of 6 per cent,” Mr Lyons said.

PA – IrishTimes

A report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found its officials and local authorities issued 10,000 enforcement actions over the last two years.

The study – Focus on Environmental Enforcement in Ireland – found the EPA issued 45 legally binding directions to local authorities two years ago to meet tougher drinking water standards.

The concerns centred around poor filter operations and the lack of alert systems such as chlorine monitors.

Some 339 drinking water supplies posed a concern in 2007. Since then 83 have come off, but another 62 were added. The body said it intends to examine supplies on the Remedial Action List further over the next two years to improve drinking water standards.
(more…)