The Northern Ireland Environment Agency noted this week that the second stage of returning waste illegally deposited involves 2,000 tonnes of material from a farm in Cules, Killadeas, Fermanagh.
Northern Ireland Minister Mark H Durkan (above) has highlighted the cooperation between ministers in Ireland and Northern Ireland over the dumping of waste
The waste is going to a licensed landfill in the Republic at Scotch Corner, Co. Monaghan. The landfill is licensed by the Environmental Protection Agency and owned and operated by Monaghan County Council.
Action to deal with the Killadeas waste has been underway since 2004 when farmer Philip Johnston was investigated for depositing some 1,900 tonnes of municipal-type waste buried under pasture land to the rear of his farmyard. He was convicted and jailed in 2007.
All addressed items of waste, noted by Environment and Heritage Service officers at the time, were found to come from premises in Cork, Dublin and Wexford.
Killadeas is the third site in Northern Ireland in the current financial year that waste will be successfully removed from and repatriated to the Republic of Ireland.
Environment minister Mark H Durkan said: The continuation of work to remove and repatriate waste from these three sites this year further demonstrates our commitment to tackle illegal waste. This work will help protect the environment and I welcome our counterparts in the Republic of Ireland co-operating with us to address the scourge of illegal dumping.”
Cooperation
The process to remove the waste to the south is estimated to take up to five weeks to complete.
Approximately 4,000 tonnes of waste has already been removed from a site close to Fivemiletown in Co. Tyrone and a further 4,000 tonnes of waste from a site close to Omagh, Co. Tyrone.
The work to return wastes to Ireland started in 2010 and are being undertaken as part of a roadmap agreed between the authorities in both Member States and the European Commission to deal with illegal movements of waste which took place from Ireland into Northern Ireland.
The legal context for these works is provided by the EU Regulations on Shipments of Waste.
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