Irish Steel
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Irish Steel Limited (), later known as Irish Ispat Limited, was an Irish semi-state company which was involved in steel production primarily from a plant on Haulbowline island in
Cork Harbour Cork Harbour () is a natural harbour and river estuary at the mouth of the River Lee (Ireland), River Lee in County Cork, Ireland. It is one of several which lay claim to the title of "second largest natural harbour in the world by navigational ...
. Originally founded in 1939, the company and its assets were sold to Ispat International (later known as
Mittal Steel Company Mittal Steel Company N.V., incorporated in the Netherlands and headquartered in the United Kingdom, was a steel producer. In 2006, it produced 110.5 million tonnes of steel and had annual production capacity of 138 million tons of steel. In August ...
) (for
IR£ The pound ( Irish: ) was the currency of Ireland until 2002. Its ISO 4217 code was IEP, and the symbol was £ (or £Ir for distinction.) The Irish pound was replaced by the euro on 1 January 1999. Euro currency did not begin circulation until ...
1) in 1996. The company and its plant closed down in 2001. Dumping of production materials, including toxic waste, resulted in significant contamination of the Irish Steel plant site, and increased the size of Haulbowline island by . Campaigners, including
Erin Brockovich Erin Brockovich (née Pattee; born June 22, 1960) is an American paralegal, consumer advocate, and environmental activist who was instrumental in building a case against Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) involving groundwater contamination ...
, pushed for action by the state, and €61m was allocated to clean-up the site and to redevelop it as a park. The cleanup and redevelopment project lasted upwards of a decade; from 2011 to 2021.


History

Irish Steel was originally formed as a privately owned firm in 1939, and commenced operations from a steel plant on Haulbowline island, near
Cobh Cobh ( ,), known from 1849 until 1920 as Queenstown, is a seaport town on the south coast of County Cork, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. With a population of 14,148 inhabitants at the 2022 census of Ireland, 2022 census, Cobh is on the south si ...
in
Cork Harbour Cork Harbour () is a natural harbour and river estuary at the mouth of the River Lee (Ireland), River Lee in County Cork, Ireland. It is one of several which lay claim to the title of "second largest natural harbour in the world by navigational ...
. This company went into receivership in the 1940s, and in 1947 the then Minister for Industry and Commerce,
Seán Lemass Seán Francis Lemass (born John Francis Lemass; 15 July 1899 – 11 May 1971) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as Taoiseach and Leader of Fianna Fáil from 1959 to 1966. He also served as Tánaiste from 1957 to 1959, 1951 to 1954 ...
, established a state-financed company to acquire its assets and "secure 240 jobs". In 1960, the state's involvement was expanded by the Irish Steel Holdings Limited Act 1960, in what
Jack Lynch John Mary Lynch (15 August 1917 – 20 October 1999) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as Taoiseach from 1966 to 1973 and 1977 to 1979. He was Leader of Fianna Fáil from 1966 to 1979, Leader of the Opposition from 1973 to 1977, ...
(by then Minister for Industry and Commerce) described as addressing a "gap which would otherwise exist in reland'sindustrial capacity". By the late 1960s, Irish Steel was producing approximately one-third of steel used by Irish industry. At its peak, in 1971, the company employed approximately 1,200 people and had increased production to run 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week. In 1981, responsibility for Irish Steel was transferred from the Minister for Industry and Commerce to the Minister for Energy. In 1972, Edward A. Coleman (the general manager of Irish Steel and a member of a delegation from the Confederation of Irish Industry travelling for discussions with EEC officials in Brussels), was among those killed in the Staines air disaster. A fall in steel prices in Europe during the 1980s led to layoffs at Irish Steel, and the work-force was progressively reduced from 650. The assets of the company were sold to Irish Ispat (a subsidiary of Ispat International), for
IR£ The pound ( Irish: ) was the currency of Ireland until 2002. Its ISO 4217 code was IEP, and the symbol was £ (or £Ir for distinction.) The Irish pound was replaced by the euro on 1 January 1999. Euro currency did not begin circulation until ...
1, in 1996. Under the terms of the sale agreement, the Haulbowline plant was operated under the condition that "£30 million would be invested in the plant and its 330 jobs would be secured" for at least five years. Shortly after this term ended in 2001, the plant was closed and 450 jobs were lost.


Controversy


Safety

According to a 2005 article in ''
The Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It was launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is Ireland's leading n ...
'', "Irish Ispat's tenure at Haulbowline was marked by controversy, with the firm failing to invest" as expected under the negotiated takeover agreement. There were several worker deaths between 1999 and 2001, including that of a lab technician who died in a fire. According to an inquest hearing, the plant's administrative block had no sprinklers, fire escapes or fire alarms, and that the "company's fire engine failed to start because of a flat battery". According to other reports, the plant's safety manager had been refused budget for improved fire-safety training.


Closure

The plant was closed, with limited notice, by Ispat International in 2001. At the time of closure, the company had debts of more than €57m. Reports of land and asset sales, prior to closure, led to some accusations of " asset-stripping" by the parent company. One such asset disposal, in the months prior to closure, involved the sale of a 30-acre site (for an undisclosed sum) to build a hazardous waste incinerator to the "fury of local residents". As of 2002, creditors were still owed over €20m, including over €7m due to former-workers for statutory redundancy and other payments.


Environmental impact

From at least the 1960s, waste materials (including toxic chemicals and steel slag) used in the steel production process were dumped by Irish Steel on the eastern part of Haulbowline island. This dumping site became known as the "East Tip", and was described in later reports as one of Ireland's "worst polluted former industrial sites". The "East Tip" expanded over several decades to include 650,000 cubic metres of waste, extending eastwards from Haulbowline's naval dockyard. The processing waste acted as approximately of land reclamation infill, and the dumped materials reputedly increased Haulbowline island from approximately to over in size. According to the terms of planning permission, received by Irish Steel in 1981, there were no controls placed on the material that could be dumped or on protections required to prevent
leachate A leachate is any liquid that, in the course of passing through matter, extracts soluble or suspended solids, or any other component of the material through which it has passed. Leachate is a widely used term in the environmental sciences wh ...
into the harbour. By the time of the plant's closure in 2001, radioactive and Chromium 6 contamination was found to have remained in the island's soil. Campaigners, including
Erin Brockovich Erin Brockovich (née Pattee; born June 22, 1960) is an American paralegal, consumer advocate, and environmental activist who was instrumental in building a case against Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) involving groundwater contamination ...
, requested government action on the contamination issue. As of 2011, it was reported that the contamination at the site had cost the state "more than €50 million — mostly in legal costs". As of 2014, €52 million had been spent on clearing the site, with "a further €40 million armarkedto make the site safe". While the
Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Protection Agency may refer to the following government organizations: * Environmental Protection Agency (Queensland), Australia * Environmental Protection Agency (Ghana) * Environmental Protection Agency (Ireland) * Environmenta ...
had attributed €15.9m of the projected site cleanup costs to Irish Ispat (formerly Irish Steel), the High Court dismissed a claim by the state to have the company's liquidator cover the cost of making the site environmentally safe. The Irish government was later threatened with legal action by the
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...
, for a failure to meet its obligations under the
Waste Framework Directive The Waste Framework Directive (WFD) is a European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geogr ...
. In 2016, it was reported that the remediation works budget, of €61m, would not be sufficient to complete the full cleanup and redevelopment project. The cleanup and redevelopment of the former Irish Steel "East Tip" site took more than a decade to complete, between 2011 (when the work necessary to prepare a waste licence application was discussed) and 2021 (when the site was opened as a park). Haulbowline Island Amenity Park was officially opened in January 2021.


References

{{reflist Former state-sponsored bodies of the Republic of Ireland Iron and steel mills Defunct manufacturing companies of the Republic of Ireland