Political finger pointing over the Pembroke Dump meandered into the House of Assembly yesterday just as menacingly as the smoke which filled the city streets nearby.

The subject of the landfill came up as Members debated the Department of Parks section in the Budget.

Each political party blamed the other for not delivering on a promise to transform Pembroke Dump off Palmetto Road into public green space.

The discussion ensued even as the dump fire raged a short distance away. The soot-filled air was detectable right outside the Parliament Building.

The row started with what seemed like an innocent question from Opposition Member Patricia Gordon-Pamplin and ended with the realisation that previous political promises on this subject have officially been broken .

Mrs. Gordon- Pamplin asked: "Has that project been abandoned because there's very little money in the Budget (for park development)?

"When was that intent abandoned?"

This brought former Works and Engineering Minister Ashfield DeVent to his feet.

He said: "I think it's important for people to realise that 100 tonnes of green waste goes there everyday. And I think the concept that it would be made into a park, and the push for it, came under a former Government. It definitely came under the UBP Government.

"As someone who has lived in the area all of my life and having heard this promise that it would become a park, when I became the Minister I wanted to see why it hadn't become a park. They hadn't, as a Government, actually informed people what the process was and how long it would actually take.

"Quite frankly I don't think that's going to happen in most of our lifetimes. It's not going to happen. So the idea that was floated many years ago under a former Government wasn't quite honest and wasn't going to happen.

"Where would that 100 tonnes go?"

Mr. DeVent did not say exactly when the idea was originally floated, but suggested in may have been as long ago as the early 1990's.

The blame shift onto the Opposition caused Dr. Grant Gibbons to join the fray. He said: "There was a Harvard study that was done which basically said, 'it's going to take roughly ten years,' and this was the mid-1990's, 'for the garbage and the vegetable matter there to decompose sufficiently so it would be safe enough to turn into a park'.

"When organic matter rots because of enzyme and other actions like that, carbon dioxide and methane are produced and also heat is produced.

"One of the reasons we have the fire over there today, I suspect, is because the Government has continued to put vegetable or organic matter on top."

The suggestion that the Government might be responsible for the fire was met with loud outbursts from the other side of the room.

Dr. Gibbons continued: "What I have heard today is that Government has no intention of turning that into a park which was said a number of years ago. So the promise to turn it into a park has essentially been clarified this afternoon ? there is no intention whatsoever."

A formally marshy area near the Pembroke Dump on Parson's road has been turned into a public open area in recent years. Nearby residents use the area for kids' play, sports and picnics.

The new space is not representative of a sprawling public park suggested to people in the area back in the 1990's.