This article is from page 8 of the 2006-03-07 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 8 JPG
THE jobs of 140 workers at an east Clare timber processing plant are under threat as a result of new strict environmental controls laid down by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Last month, the EPA awarded a new Integrated Prevention Pollution Control (IPC) license to the Spanish-owned Finsa Forest Products in Scariff.
However, in a strident objection against conditions included in the new licence, the company’s CEO, Virgilio Romero Suarez has told the EPA that having studied the draft licence and discussed its contents “with our parent company, we have concluded that certain provisions will have serious implications for the continued viability of our company”.
Mr Suarez continued, “We are committed to operating the plant in a manner that will minimize its environmental consequences, but we cannot sustain the imposition of environmental conditions that are not imposed on any of our competitors within the EU.”
Enterprise Ireland has come to the aid of the processing plant by also lodging an objection against conditions in the licence, pointing out to the EPA that if the restrictions imposed are not lifted “it will impact negatively on the company’s competitiveness and threaten 140 jobs in Scariff”.
Any move to close down operations would have a massive impact on the east Clare economy as Finsa’s most recent accounts show that it paid out €5 million in wages in 2004.
At the centre of the dispute between Finsa and the EPA is the agency’s insistence that from now on, it must not use any recycled material in its production process, including recycled materials from Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste.
Finsa points out that the use of recycled wooder is cheaper than virgin wood, demands less energy to be processed and reduces the company’s CO emissions by 2040 tonnes per annum.
A decision on the objections will be known in a number of months.