Deirdre's de Burca's statement from Blessington Press Conference

There is much that can be said here this morning but I will concentrate on the council's handling of the illegal waste on Roadstone's land and the implications that this has in particular for local water supplies. There are several facts that must be highlighted including
(i) the unprecedented use of Section 55 of the Waste Management Act by the County Manager, Eddie Sheehy, to direct Roadstone to develop a landfill on its lands at Blessington to cater for the illegal waste found there, thus exempting it from having to go through the planning process. In the view of the Green Party, this amounts to an abuse of the Section 55 process which was never intended for such purposes
(ii)the failure of Wicklow County Council to complete its investigation into the illegal dumps on Roadstone's land, although these were discovered as far back as 2001. Eight separate areas were identified in which the council dug boreholes and some of these areas have not yet been excavated. It is impossible therefore to quantify how much illegal waste there is on the site, or its potential impact on local water supplies
(iii)Wicklow County Council has refused to give information about the illegal dumping and associated water pollution to the elected representatives of the council. I have here a letter which was sourced through the use of a Freedom of Information request that was signed by the council's Director of Environmental Services and that admits that the Blessington acquifer (or groundwater supply) is polluted. And yet repeatedly in the local media and at council meetings, Wicklow County Council officials have denied that the acquifer is polluted. There is a total lack of transparency about the way in which the council has carried out its investigations and serious questions about the council's own involvement in illegal dumping on Roadstone's lands in the past have not been satisfactorily addressed.

As a Green Party councillor on Wicklow County Council I have done my best to highlight these issues. However, I do not believe that I, or anybody else should be put in the position of having to be an "Erin Brokovich" and having to do the work of the statutory agencies for them. What is important about today's press conference is that two Green Party Dublin-based TDs have come out to visit Blessington to express their concern about the potential threat to the water supply of the Dublin Region and to call on Minister Roche to intervene by taking the matter out of the hands of Wicklow County Council. We are calling here today for the Minister to appoint an Inspector as a matter of urgency and this only echoes a call that was made by Wicklow county councillors who attended a recent Special Meeting of the council about the Roadstone illegal dumps. There was unanimous support at that meeting for the Minsiter to appoint such an Inspector and this matter will be voted on at our meeting in September.

Our hope is today that the media will assist us in voicing our concerns and putting the necessary pressure on Minister Roche to take some long-overdue action on this issue. it is no longer just a Wicklow issue, but a national issue given the 700,000 people or so whose drinking water supply is potentially contaminated by the recent decisions of the council. In his capacity as Minister for the Environment we are calling on him to act now. If he fails to do so, we will certainly see Ireland being dragged in front of the European Courts yet again for breach of EU Water Directives. We should be able to rely on our own government and not the European Commission and the European Courts to protect our precious drinking water supply.