Councillors in Co Wicklow have called on the Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, to appoint a High Court inspector to investigate issues surrounding illegal dumping in the county.
As a first step, councillors want the inspector to investigate dumping on Roadstone's land at Blessington. They then want the inquiry expanded to cover illegal dumping at sites in West Wicklow and, finally, in the rest of the county.
County manager Eddie Sheehy said the council had consulted extensively with the Environmental Protection Agency before framing a Section 55 notice to remediate the Roadstone site. This provided for the digging up of waste, the removal of hazardous material and the "reinterring of the inert remainder".
The EPA has issued a preliminary refusal on Mr Sheehy's proposals for the site, but its final decision has not been published.
On the issue of access for walkers, councillors looked set to abandon the proposal to add 15 "access routes" to the county development plan.
A council sub-committee had proposed adding the routes, all of which are on State or semi-State land, to the plan by way of variation.
Walkers representatives were angered when earlier plans to lift rights of way in addition to the access routes were dropped.
Yesterday councillors were told the National Parks and Wildlife Service had advised the lifting of access routes could give people the impression they had less access to Wicklow's National Park than actually existed.
The NPWS proposed instead that the council draw up a comprehensive strategy for developing walking, as well as producing a recreational walking map showing where a right to roam existed on National Park and Coillte lands.
A decision on access routes was deferred to next week's council meeting.