The Green Party leader has denied he engaged in ‘parish pump politics’ in relation to the establishment of the Poolbeg Incinerator in Dublin.
Mr. Gormley publicly opposed the incinerator and recently published draft policy proposals which would make the incinerator economically unviable.
Work on the incinerator stopped because the Department of the Environment failed to approve a licence.
Mr. Gormley defended his handling of the controversy surrounding the incinerator which would be located in his constituency.
“An Bord Pleanála gave planning permission – which had absolutely nothing to do with me” he said.
“Yet I recall the headlines in newspapers saying basically that this was a Minister that couldn’t even stop an incinerator in his own backyard”.
“And now, it has flipped to ‘this is a that’s Minister trying to stop 600 jobs, this is the Minister that’s acting in some sort of nimbyish fashion – and none of those accounts are actually true” he added.
