The Workers Party have described as alarming reports in today’s Irish Examiner newspaper that the Department of the Environment had wanted to conceal a large pool of hazardous toxic waste at the former Irish Steel site on Haulbowline Island in Cork Harbour.

Cobh based Workers Party spokesman John Jefferies said that the Department stands accused of a massive breach of its own health and safety regulations as well as contempt for international best practice in waste disposal.

“The Irish Steel plant has lain silent for seven years now.  Millions has already been spent on consultants’ reports on how to deal with the toxic waste on the eastern end of Haulbowline Island.  Over the past two years there has been extensive demolition of the old plant and removal of waste material onto ships, some of this done in windy conditions and with noticeable dust deposits around the town.  Now, when the work was supposed to be near completion, we learn that the most dangerous of the toxic waste is still on site and it is so hazardous that our own Department of Environment wanted to cover it up while they decided how to deal with it”, said Mr. Jefferies.

“Underlying all of this is the fact that the same Department of Environment and its agencies want the people of Cobh and Cork’s Lower Harbour to accept a toxic waste incinerator within a kilometre of  the same location – a waste incinerator that so-called Green Minister John Gormley will not have on his own doorstep. How can the people of this area possibly accept any assurances from the government when they have deliberately tried to cover-up the extent of the toxic crisis at the former Irish Steel?”, said John Jefferies.