It is understood that an Environmental Officer from Donegal County Council was due to inspect the works late yesterday afternoon.

An official at Buncrana Town Council confirmed: "As far as I am aware, both the Health and Safety Authority and the County Council Environment section are satisfied that the contractor carrying out the works today is full certified to remove the materials and dispose of them safely.

Brian Flanagan, the driving force behind The Plaza Project, confirmed they had enlisted the services of Ireland's leading asbestos removal firm Scottmarc, to ensure that everything was done to the highest standards.

"It's been one long tale of woe," he said. "We could have had all of the materials removed within 24 hours if works hadn't been stopped. Scottmarc are licenced by the HSA and have worked on much larger scale asbestos removal projects than ours."

Members of the local business community expressed concern, however, that the county council official had still not appeared as late as 4.45pm yesterday and could not be contacted.

"We believed that he was supposed to be here while the removal was taking place, but we've seen no sign of him. And, while we're happy that the big sheets have finally been removed, we remain very concerned that there seems to be a lot of dust still lying about.

The Journal was unable to obtain a comment from Donegal County Council at the time of going to press.