THE Southern Health Board last night insisted that waste being stored in 11 refrigerated trailers in the grounds of St Finbarr's Hospital, Cork, was totally secure.
The Cork South Central Fianna Fail TD and SHB member, Mr Ball O'Keeffe, had expressed concern about the storage of the waste, including syringes, scalpels and other surgical waste from Cork University Hospital and other hospitals.
The Southern Health Board's technical services manager, Mr Joe Casey, said the material was securely stored the cost was paid by the firm contracted to dispose of the waste.
The SHB had been incinerating such waste until the end of 1994 when an EPA requirement obliged it to stop.
It then exported the material to Britain for disposal, but this had proved costly, he said.
The SHB then employed a contractor to microwave the material at Cork University Hospital. Microwaving cost about £400,000 annually but still proved cheaper than exporting.
The microwaving was "100 per cent satisfactory", Mr Casey said. Under EU legislation, the SHB was obliged to put the contract up for tender when it expired.
The Irish subsidiary of a Scottish firm, Scot Safe, won the contract using a heat treatment process which will take three weeks to become operational, when the stored backlog will be destroyed.