| Neil Prendeville - 3rd July 2008 |
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| Written by Staff Reporter | ||||
| Thursday, 03 July 2008 | ||||
Page 2 of 2
I spoke on air this weekend with the distressed workers who actually operated the machinery on the slag heap on Haulbowline Island where Irish steel was situated and they dumped their waste. The fear of the ex-workers now is that they have been poisoned by the contaminated waste they discovered, dug, sifted, mixed and transported. They feel that they were kept in the dark, long after it was known what they were dealing with. Chromium 6 is the second most deadly carcinogen in the world, lead, mercury, and zinc were also discovered. It reminds me of the Hepatitis C scandal some years ago, where people had to wait to see if they had been contaminated with poisoned blood transfusions. These lads brought the dust home on their clothes, some to families, some to their young kids. Now they have been tossed aside and can't get answers. They don't even know how to go about being properly medically tested. If the department of Environment knew for years what was on that Island and left workers to disturbed it then its a scandal of humongous proportions. We may have the number two largest harbour in the world, but we have the number one man made hazardous waste dumping site. Wimbledon weather must have touch 30 degrees on centre court on Tuesday afternoon. The women on court were swabbing themselves down with bags of ice to stay cool. Proper June/July weather. Then why, 45 minutes away by plane are we bearing witness to heavy rain, winds that ripped up garden umbrellas and grey dull cloudy skies?. There may be a so-called downturn (I hate the word recession!) but in the last fortnight there's been a sudden surge in last minute sunshine holiday bookings. They don't come cheap, the days of last minutes bargains are gone. Nowadays the later you leave it the more you pay, with up to 50% of flight charges going directly to fuel costs. Another summer gone west and if the long range forecaster I spoke to is anything to go by, it'll pick up third week in August! |
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