Regional Superdump at Donard likely to get green light says De Búrca
Green Party councillor, Deirdre de Burca, has claimed that a Regional Superdump at Donard is West Wicklow is likely to get the green light from the Environmental Protection Agency. Cllr de Burca made her comments following the recent publication on the EPA’s website of its Inspector’s recommendation to grant a waste licence to the site, allowing the 300,000 tonnes of illegally dumped waste on site to be recycled or landfilled. The licence would also allow 180,000 tonnes of waste to be imported each year for the next eight years from Counties Carlow, Kildare and Meath to be recycled or landfilled.
“This is truly an appalling prospect for the people of the area” says de Burca. “Firstly the letters of complaint that they sent into Wicklow County Council in 1998 detailing the licence numbers of lorries coming and going from the site ‘disappeared’ from the council’s files. Then the landowner, a Mr O’Reilly, accused Wicklow County Council of dumping illegally there over the years and sent the council an invoice for 1 million euros, which he subsequently withdrew. Then he sold the site of the illegal dump at a significant profit to Brownfield Restoration which is now applying to the EPA for a waste licence for a Regional Superdump on the site”.
The Green Party councillor says that Brownfield Restoration sent a letter to all councillors last year accusing Wicklow County Council of having dumped up to one third of the illegal waste on the site and suggesting that the council’s liability for clean up costs would amount to 10 million euros. “I am very concerned that this threat to expose apparent wrongdoing on the part of the council may have influenced the Department of the Environment, and ultimately the EPA, to grant a waste licence to allow an illegal dump to be converted into a massive and very profitable Regional Superdump” she says. “As the Department with overall responsibility for Wicklow County Council, the Department of the Environment would have had to foot some of the bill for the 10 million euros being demanded”.
De Burca is also very critical of the Minister for the Environment Dick Roche, who she claims approved the boundaries of a Special Area of Conservation next to the illegal dump being changed and narrowed. This, she argues, allowed the application for the Superdump at the site to be considered by the EPA. She points out that Des Richardson, a former advisor to the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, is now advising Brownfield Restoration.
“The track record of this Government on illegal dumping is very disappointing” she says. “The Sunday Business Post reported last year that the Fianna Fail party had accepted 60,000 euros in political donations from A1 Waste and Dublin Waste even though both of these companies had been implicated in illegal dumping in West Wicklow. What kind of message is this sending out to the public at large? This Government seems quite willing to legalise illegal dumps and in the process to enrich their supporters at the expense of local communities and the environment. This is not acceptable”
