The massive clean-up of an illegal landfill site near Naas cost €60m, court hears

By Declan Brennan

The cost of cleaning up an illegal landfill site after a massive fire broke out was over €60 million, a court has heard.

Tony Dean (70) of Woodhaven, Milltown, Dublin was found guilty last month by a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court of two breaches of a waste management licence and of holding or recovering waste in a manner likely to cause environmental pollution at a 25 acres site at Kerdiffstown, Naas, Co Kildare between October 2003 and November 2008.

Dean, who owned Dean Waste Management Ltd., had pleaded not guilty to the three charges and the prosecution case was that he was negligent rather than that he had connived or consented to commit the offences, which are contrary to the Waste Management Act, 1996.

The defendant, who is remanded on bail, appeared before Judge Melanie Greally this morning, for a sentence hearing.

Dean Kelly SC, prosecuting, said in 2003, a licence was issued to Dean Waste for the storage of waste in lined land fill cells in former sand and gravel pits a few kilometres outside of Naas.

He said the licensed area was about 30 hectares at it's height but that the area subject to the offending was a 35 acre section in the north west part of the site. He said the only provision for disposal of the waste was in lined land fill cells constructed in 2005.

He said the waste was not ultimately disposed of in these cells until 2008. He said that between 2003 and 2008 a series of audits and inspections by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials identified a growing mound of waste which contravened the terms of the licence.

Mr Kelly said that Nephin Trading Ltd., (NTL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Dean Waste Ltd., operated the licence and that they failed to address the non-compliance issues despite repeated warnings from the EPA.

The court heard that the waste material which built up was assessed by experts as unfit for recovery and there was no evidence anyway of any attempts to recover it.

Mr Kelly said there was no management of land fill gas and no liner to control where the gas went.

He said such gases had a substantial odour, present a risk of flammability and of explosion, and can cause vegetation dieback. Landfill leachate, which results from rain water percolating through the exposed waste, can also enter the water table, the court heard.

He said that when the company applied for a second licence in 2006 there were 188 complaints registered from local residents as well as local golfers and the operators of a local St Vincent DePaul facility. The second licence was issued by the EPA in September 2006 and the second charge of breaching a licence relates to this licence.

Mr Kelly said that the jury trial heard evidence of substantial profits made by Dean Waste from 2003 to 2007. In 2008 the EPA took the view that it needed to pursue a prosecution.

The facility continued to trade until June 2010 when it ceased trading. A liquidator was appointed to NTL and Dean Waste went into receivership.

In January 2011 a major fire broke out at the site, which was under the control of the EPA, the court heard. Control of the site passed to Kildare County Council in 2015.

From 2011 to 2014, the Department of the Environment paid €9.9m to the EPA to fund its response to the fire and proper waste management of the site. Kildare council received €1.46m in 2011 to fund its immediate response to the fire.

The country council later received another €34m for capital costs for general remediation of the site and another €16m in 2022 to finish the remediation project.

Mr Kelly told the court that in total €61.5m was paid to recover the site but that around €11.5m of that was a direct response to the 2011 fire.

He said that while the quantity of the waste was unhelpful in terms of the fire the cause of the fire could not be laid at the door of NTL or the defendant as the site was no longer in their control when it broke out.

Barry White SC, defending, said the site had been targeted by vandals in the run up to the fire taking place.

He said his client had invested the profits he made from Dean Waste back into the site and that he lost everything in 2010 when he lost the site and the company.

He said that his client had hired Dr Ted Nealon, a former employee of the EPA, to advise him.

Mr Kelly told the court that in 2015 Mr Nealon was prosecuted in relation to the Kerdiffstown site. At his trial before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court a judge directed a verdict of not guilty after a ruling on the statutory interpretation of what a manager or officer in a company is.

Mr Nealon's defence was that he was a consultant to the relevant company. The case went to the Court of Appeal and then the Supreme Court which ruled in 2010 that the direction to acquit Mr Nealon was wrong but that with the passing of time it would be unfair to resume the prosecution.

Mr White said his client had entrusted day to day operations with the EPA to Dr Nealon, who he said is entitled to the presumption of evidence. He said in these circumstances it would be grossly unfair to impose a custodial sentence on his client.

The maximum penalties available to the court are a prison term of ten years or a fine of €15m.

Mr White said that his client's company provided substantial employment and he has contributed to society. He said there is no “pile of money” and his client is not in a position to meet a substantial fine.

He said that when his client's company went into receivership “everything was lost”, including a house in Spain. He said his client is not in good health and needs to undergo imminent heart surgery.

Judge Greally adjourned the case to January 30 next. She said she would proceed with sentence then unless there was evidence that the accused was to undergo surgery at a set date.

The court heard that in 2009 Dean pleaded guilty to a charge of recovery of waste without a licence relating to a site at Whitestown Quarry, near Baltinglass, between January 1st and May 1st in 1998.

He also has a convictions for offences of assault causing harm, threatening and abusive behaviour and intoxication in a public place, all occurring on September 29, 2006.

Dean had pleaded not guilty to two charges that he, as then director of Nephin Trading Ltd, disposed of or undertook the recovery of waste at a facility in Kerdiffstown, Naas, Co Kildare otherwise than in accordance with the waste licence then in force, between October 2003 to September 2006 and, separately, between September 2006 and November 2008.

He had also denied a third charge that he held or recovered waste in a manner likely to cause environmental pollution at the Kerdiffistown site between October 2003 and November 2008. He was convicted on all three charges by unanimous verdicts.