Dublin City Council’s own Audit Committee has issued a report that contains damning criticism of Dublin City Council’s management of the multi-million euro Poolbeg incinerator project.

The report’s findings are highly critical of Dublin City Council’s mis-management of the incinerator project that has already cost the public more than €90million.

The report finds that procurement rules were breached on a number of occasions and financial process and procedures were inadequate. Most worryingly the report states that at this point “the audit committee is not in a position to provide assurance to the City Council that current project governance arrangements on the Poolbeg Waste to Energy project adequately address the weaknesses indentified in the Local Government Auditors report and are fit for purpose for a large and complex project of this nature”.

The City Councils’ own Audit Committee clearly has little confidence in Dublin City Council’s ability to manage this project and it would be irresponsible of City Councillors to ignore this fact.

The decision on the construction contract for the incinerator is due to be made in April 2013. It is not acceptable that the project would go ahead until all the issues already identified with the project have been addressed. The Minister should take charge of this project before any more public money is wasted.

As leader of the Fianna Fail group on Dublin City Council I will propose a motion at tomorrow evenings City Council meeting calling on the Minister to directly intervene and to take charge of this project. We will oppose any further spending on this project until all the issues raised in the Local Government Auditors report have been fully addressed. We are seeking cross party support for our motion. Mary