Clare County Council has agreed to pay £350,000 damages and costs to 14 residents who challenged on environmental and health grounds the continued operation of a council dump at Doora, near Ennis. The council has also agreed to cease using the site as a dump from June 2001.
After 25 days, the action taken by the residents against the council over the Doora dump was amicably settled without admission of liability at the High Court yesterday. Mr Justice Kearns said the case had been long and difficult.
It had run over 14 days before the late Mr Justice Shanley in June and 11 days before him. It involved complex issues touching on the drainage of the Fergus river and the environmental impact of the Doora dump upon that.
He recognised that county councils had major problems regarding waste disposal and, while the management of the Doora dump had, in the past, been very bad, the council had made Herculean efforts to put matters right and had tried to meet the "very fair" complaints of the residents, with whom he was impressed. The council had also tried to comply with the proper guidelines for landfill sites.
Mr Justice Kearns described the settlement as the optimum in such a dispute. The manner in which the case had been resolved was perhaps a model for others to follow, he added.
The 14 residents had claimed they were surrounded by the Doora dump which was growing larger and higher and was creating an unhealthy and dangerous environment. They sought damages and orders restraining Clare County Council from using the land as a dump and directing the council to rehabilitate the area or, alternatively, to stop extending the dump eastwards.
The court was told that rats, flies, noise and obnoxious odours were among the problems faced by residents, who feared disease. It was stated that originally 272 acres of land had been abandoned to form a "flood plain" and minimise flooding problems caused by the tidal Fergus river. In 1957 Ennis Urban District Council sought permission to use the flood plain for dumping domestic refuse.
The county council, represented by Mr Daniel O'Keeffe SC and Mr Pat Quinn, said it wished to extend the dump and claimed it could not get a suitable alternative site. The council denied that the use of the lands for dumping was unlawful and also that the dump was a nuisance or that there had been loss or annoyance to residents.
Presenting the settlement to the court yesterday, Mr John Rogers SC, for the residents, said he was delighted to say that the parties had happily come to terms. He asked the court to make an order incorporating its terms.
He said the primary provision was that the council agreed to cease using the lands at Doora as a dump, tiphead or landfill for the disposal of waste or associated activities from June 30th, 2001.
Until then, it could dispose of certain waste, but not dead animals or clinical or hazardous waste there, and it was to operate the site as stipulated in the agreement.
The council may also operate a civic amenity facility near the entrance to the landfill for receiving small quantities of domestic and commercial wastes from private individuals until June 30th, 2002.
It may also operate, until the same date, a waste-transfer station for bulk wastes near the civic amenity facility inside the dump entrance in the event of there being no alternative landfill site to take council waste. Both the civil amenity facility and waste-transfer station are to be operated to "the best environmental standards".
The council has undertaken to remove all structures connected with waste disposal from the lands at Doora by December 31st, 2002, retaining only two buildings.
The agreement also stipulates that the council will not locate any landfill dump, waste-transfer station or related facility in a number of townlands in Co Clare.
