Council denies bid to mislead court

WICKLOW COUNTY Council has been accused of “a wholly conscious and deliberate act of concealment” in withholding from the High Court documents relating to an illegal dump in west Wicklow.

The council acknowledged it had not initially complied fully with an order of discovery, but insisted this was a mistake and denied there was an orchestrated attempt to mislead the court.

Wicklow County Council is seeking orders under the Waste Management Act against the former owner of Whitestown lands, John O’Reilly; Brownfield Restoration Ireland Ltd, which bought the lands from Mr O’Reilly in 2003; and two waste companies, Swalcliffe Ltd, trading as Dublin Waste, and Dean Waste Co Ltd.

In a counter-claim, Brownfield and Dean Waste allege the council was itself engaged in dumping on the lands and should bear the remediation costs.

At stake is a €60 million bill to clean up the Whitestown site and remove or treat large quantities of hospital and other hazardous waste and contaminated soil amounting to 1,140,000 tonnes.

Resuming his evidence to the court yesterday, Wicklow County Council’s environmental consultant Donal Ó Laoire said the council’s initial discovery of documents to the court had not included documents in his possession because the council had not asked him to supply them.

He would have willingly given the documents to the council if it had asked.

However, reading from e-mails taken from Mr Ó Laoire’s computer by order of the court, Ian Finlay SC, for Brownfield, said Mr Ó Laoire had supplied a number of relevant documents to Wicklow County Council and had engaged in telephone calls and discussions relating to the case and the discovery of documents.

Recalling that the council’s law office had breached an earlier High Court undertaking not to disclose information to Mr Ó Laoire, Mr Finlay said: “Once again we are faced with what would appear to be a wholly conscious and deliberate act of concealment” on the part of Wicklow County Council.

Philip Duffy, a senior executive officer with the council, gave evidence that he had received documents from Mr Ó Laoire but had not asked for them. He had determined these were not relevant as the order for discovery was made against Wicklow County Council and not Mr Ó Laoire.

Accordingly, Mr Ó Laoire’s documents were not submitted in the council’s original discovery.

However, under questioning from Shane Murphy SC, for Dean Waste, he acknowledged some of the documents – particularly a copy of a letter to the county manager Eddie Sheehy dated 2002, and information regarding documents supplied to gardaí as part of a criminal investigation – were in fact relevant. Not to discover them to the court had been a mistake, he said, adding that it was his mistake.

Mr Duffy told Mr Murphy he had not asked Mr Sheehy for his diaries as part of the discovery process, nor had he included minutes of meetings of the council’s senior officials overseeing Whitestown as the council contended it had legal privilege over the minutes. He agreed with Mr Murphy that under normal circumstances, a single affidavit would be made for cases of this nature and acknowledged he had now made five or six supplementary ones.