A total of 87 cases of illegal dumping from the Republic are being investigated in the North, the North's Environment Minister said today.
A total of £800,000 worth of assets have been seized in the battle against crooks, Sammy Wilson (DUP, East Antrim) added. He told the Assembly there had been a number of joint raids involving his officials and Dublin City Council.
“We have got to make sure that we don’t allow people to benefit from this,” he said.
“If they know that they are going to be caught, they know that they are going to be severely punished, they might think twice about it.”
The high cost of refuse disposal in the Republic creates an incentive to abandon it in Northern Ireland. Mr Wilson said since 2007 the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) has secured 33 convictions and five prison sentences.
He was responding to a question from Environment Committee chairman Patsy McGlone (SDLP, Mid-Ulster).
Tommy Gallagher (SDLP, Fermanagh and South Tyrone) raised the problem of illegal dumping in the Garrison part of Fermanagh close to the border and questioned whether the minister was moving quickly enough to address the issue.
Mr Wilson said: “The fact is we now have ministerial agreement on it (the way forward).”
He said the disposal of the waste and restoring the site to its previous condition and the issue of dealing with costs was well under way.
Last year a Fermanagh farmer who kept an illegal dump on his land has been jailed for four months and fined £10,000. Philip Johnston (63) from Killadeas, Enniskillen, was charged with keeping or disposing of controlled waste.
A court heard the rubbish included metals, surgical gloves, incontinence pads and timber.
Johnston was also charged with keeping or disposing of controlled waste in a manner likely to cause pollution of the environment or harm to human health.
Further examination showed that the waste had come from Dublin, Wexford and Cork.
PA