The Government is to spend in excess of €36 million to “repatriate” 250,000 tonnes of Irish household and commercial waste illegally dumped in Northern Ireland.
The first consignments of waste will be removed from an illegal dump in Fermanagh to an approved landfill facility in Donegal.
Stormont Environment Minister Edwin Poots said it sent a strong message to landowners not to accept the material on their land.
“No matter how attractive the potential payment, it will never be worth the threat to your property and finances when you are caught,” he said.
Twenty sites in Northern Ireland are believed to have been used for illegal cross-Border dumping between 2002 and 2004.
Mr Poots said: “It involved serious criminality with absolutely no regard to the impact on the environment, local communities or our economy".
The Democratic Unionist minister added: “This process involved challenging work for my officials in DoE (Department of the Environment) and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) and their counterparts in the Republic.
When the rubbish at Slattinagh in Fermanagh is removed, officials will begin work on a site located near Trillick, Co Tyrone, containing around 10,000 tonnes of refuse.
The removal and remediation of both sites and the disposal of the waste at Ballynacarrick landfill, Co Donegal, will cost the State about €2 million.
The waste will be transported in eight 30-tonne capacity trucks daily from Monday to Friday until the site is cleared.
A further 18 sites have been identified by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency as containing illegally dumped municipal and commercial waste from the Republic. It is estimated that the complete remediation of these sites will take five years and will cost the Government more than €36 million.
Anne Blacker, head of the NIEA’s environmental crime unit which carried out investigation of the sites, said: “The sight of lorries full of waste being removed represents the culmination of a great deal of planning and teamwork. We are removing a source of pollution which had the potential to keep polluting for decades.”
Under an agreement between the Government and the Northern Executive, the full cost of disposing of the waste will be met by the State along with 80 per of the cost of removing the waste from Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland authorities will meet the remaining 20 per cent of the removal costs.
Additional reporting: PA