The Wicklow County manager, Mr Eddie Sheehy, told the High Court yesterday it was impossible to separate abut 200 tonnes of hazardous hospital waste from thousands of tonnes of other waste material dumped at a site near the Glen of Imaal in Co Wicklow.
He was giving evidence on the third day of proceedings by Wicklow County Council aimed at restoring and making safe lands at Coolnamadra, Donard, where it is claimed hospital waste was unlawfully dumped.
The action is against Swalcliffe Ltd, trading as Dublin Waste; its directors Louis and Eileen Moriaty and Mr Clifford Fenton, owner of the lands at Coolnamadra, which are close to a tributary of the Slaney River.
Mr Sheehy said the illegal dump came to the council's notice in November 2001. He accepted that Dublin Waste had offered to remove abut 200 tonnes of the waste. However, he said this was not practical as the waste was intermingled with about 8,000 tonnes of other waste material.
Mr Aidan Walsh SC, for Dublin Waste, asked why the company was not permitted to remove the hazardous waste at an earlier stage. Mr Sheehy said that was because the site became a crime scene to assess who was responsible for the serious environmental hazard. It was not simply a matter of Dublin Waste taking out their own tonnage as it had contaminated the other material, he said.
Following the advice of lawyers, no action was taken against six other groups involved in dumping the much larger amount of material at the site, Mr Sheehy said. When Mr Sheehy was asked by Mr Walsh why the council didn't sue the hospitals involved in producing the waste, the Mater Misercordiae Public Hospital and the Blackrock Clinic, Mr James Connolly SC, for the council, said that was a legal question.
The hearing continues today.