Dublin - The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Mr. John Gormley T.D., yesterday announced that in line with an agreement reached with Northern Ireland, the repatriation of waste which originated in Ireland but which was illegally disposed of in Northern Ireland in the early part of this decade is now getting underway.

The Minister said: “We are dealing with a legacy issue going back to a time of considerable illegal waste activity in both jurisdictions and when the enforcement regime for waste and other environmental legislation was not as robust as it is now. What we are now doing is facing up to our responsibilities as a State to bring the waste back for proper disposal.”

“I welcome the beginning of the process of repatriation, which reflects a lot of hard work by the administrations on both sides of the border to deal comprehensively with this issue. It shows that cross border cooperation between the relevant agencies in both jurisdictions is essential to the protection of our environment, and the pursuit of environmental crime.”

The framework agreement reached provides a template for dealing with this historical legacy issue and, initially, two sites will be dealt with involving some 14,000 tons of waste. The framework itself derives from a ‘road map’ agreed by both jurisdictions in relation to co-operation in dealing with illegal waste movements, which was endorsed by Ministers from both jurisdictions in October 2007 and by the EU Commission. Under the agreement the costs of disposing of the waste will be met by the Irish Government together with 80 percent of the costs of removing the waste from Northern Ireland.

Quelle: Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government

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