Wicklow County Council has set up joint checkpoints with the Garda on the N81 Blessington road to catch trucks involved in illegal waste dumping, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Environment was told yesterday.
Mr Eddie Sheehy, the Wicklow county manager, said a number of trucks had been impounded as a result of this operation. The Garda's National Bureau of Criminal Investigation is also investigating illegal dumping in west Wicklow.
Mr Sheehy told the committee chairman, Mr Sean Power TD (FF, Kildare), that the council had spent over €1 million on its investigations of four illegal dumps - one of which, at Whitestown, may hold as much as 300,000 tonnes of waste, including hospital waste.
He said the others were located at Coolnamadra and near Blessington, where much of the land used for illegal dumping is owned by Roadstone, a subsidiary of CRH plc, which has repeately denied knowing that this was going on over several years.
Mr Tony O'Loughlin, chief executive of CRH, told the committee that the company neither authorised nor had knowledge of any dumping on its 650 acres of land outside Blessington, and it was co-operating fully with the county council's investigation.
Questioned by Mr Ciaran Cuffe TD (Green Party, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown), Mr O'Loughlin confirmed that water on the Roadstone land would drain off in the direction of Blessington reservoir, one of Dublin's principal sources of drinking water.
He said CRH had only recently become aware of the problem and, as the investigations were still continuing, the committee's hearing was somewhat premature. The company had also employed independent consultants to assist with the inquiries.
Ms Liz McManus TD (Labour, Wicklow) expressed "incredulity" that neither Roadstone nor its parent company, CRH, were unaware that the Blessington land was being used for illegal dumping by a well-known Dublin waste management company.
Mr Dick Roche TD (FF, Wicklow) said there was still illegal dumping going on in west Wicklow, despite the best efforts of the county council to deal with it. The county manager said the council expected to recoup the costs of its investigations from those responsible for illegal dumping.
