The Director of Public Prosecutions has received a file on the contamination of animal feed with pharmaceutical waste which contained fertility hormones.
The file is one of three criminal investigations into suspected serious breaches of environmental law that have been referred to the DPP in recent months by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The referrals are believed to be among the first environmental cases ever referred to the DPP. The Environmental Protection Agency has previously relied on summary prosecutions in the District Court when it comes to alleged breaches of pollution regulations.
The contamination of Dutch pig feed with Irish waste containing the human fertility hormone MPA in July 2002 led to one of the bigeest food scares of recent years in Europe.
Some 55,000 pigs were slaughtered, while half of the 7,000 pig farmers in Holland were forced to close their businesses temporarily.
An investigation subsequently established that the feed had been contaminated with sugar water containing traces of MPA, which had been used in the coating of contraceptive pills at Wyeth Medica Ireland, in Newbridge, Co Kildare.
A report by the Environmental Protection Agency in July 2002 found this had been released to the Dublin-based waste management company Cara Environmental Technology for disposal.
It in turn had sold the sugar water to a now bankrupt Belgian company, Bioland, which sold it as treacle to Dutch feed compounders. The waste had incorrectly been classified in 2000 as green waste, the report said.
At the time, Wyeth Medica said it was co-operating fully with all investigations by the Irish authorities.
Cara also said it had believed that the waste it exported to Bioland was being disposed of correctly.
Two files relating to illegal waste operations have also been referred by the Environmental Protection Agency to the DPP.
According to informed sources, files on four separate dump sites in Wicklow are currently being finalised by the Garda, and will also be sent to the DPP.
They include an illegal dump uncovered at land owned by Cement Roadstone Holdings at Dillonsdown near Blessington.
Investigations headed up by the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation have been ongoing for two years after Wicklow County Council uncovered some of the largest illegal dumping sites ever seen in Ireland.