Cork Harbour will lose its beauty, charm and welcome for millions of tourists and its inhabitants if a toxic waste incinerator is built at Ringaskiddy, the actor Jeremy Irons told an oral hearing of An Bord Pleanála in Cork yesterday.
He said he believed it was a planning project "tinged with madness".
Mr Irons, who moved to west Cork 10 years ago, was speaking at the oral hearing into the proposed €93 million incinerator on behalf of Cobh Action for a Clean Environment.
He said other countries had been ruined by planning decisions based purely on the dollar, instead of a love of the environment.
"I don't want Ireland to be full of leprechauns and tweeness. I agree that it must have an economy that it can be proud of, but there has to be a balance that can be struck. The danger is that money talks," the actor said.
"I believe waste is a problem in Ireland. We're producing much too much and now we're going to build a facility in the teeth of the south-westerly wind on the edge of one of the most beautiful harbours in the world. The emissions will blow inland and Cork Harbour will be blighted."
Mr Irons said he believed waste would be imported to the facility. "I think that's why the planning application has been sited beside the harbour because it's easy to pull in from Europe and we will be burning and suffering from other people's toxic waste. It seems to be madness as a planning idea and will affect the way Ireland is seen in the world as a green and pleasant land."
Responding, the general manager of Indaver Ireland, Mr John Ahern, said the actor's viewpoint was based on a "fairy tale", and a world that had no waste.
"Tourism is important to us, but also the other aspects of our economy are equally important.
"What we are trying to do with our facility is to support the pharmaceutical industry in this country that has built the economy over the last 10 years. Fifteen years ago we exported our people, today we're exporting our waste, and I think we should stop both and I think we should deal with our own waste in Ireland," Mr Ahern said.
He denied that tourism would be affected."Almost every other country in Europe has incinerator technology and it doesn't stop people going on their holiday," he said.