THE SENTENCING of a waste disposal company and its director, hotelier Louis Moriarty, for illegal dumping at sites near the Glen of Imaal in Wicklow, has been adjourned at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
A Westmeath truck driver contracted to the company was fined €5,000 for drawing waste to one of the sites.
Swalcliffe Ltd, trading as Dublin Waste, of East Wall Industrial Complex, Dublin, pleaded guilty to holding or disposing of waste in a manner that caused or was likely to cause environmental pollution between August 3rd, 2001, and October 22nd, 2001, at lands owned by Clifford Fenton at Coolnamadra, Donard.
Moriarty, Griffith Avenue, Drumcondra, pleaded guilty to disposing of waste in a manner that could cause pollution at the Coolnamadra site and at Whitestown, Baltinglass on dates in 2001.
Adrian Munnelly (29), a truck driver, Main Street, Ballynacargy, Co Westmeath, had pleaded guilty to disposing of waste at the Coolnamadra site only.
Judge Katherine Delahunt said Munnelly was in a different category to his co-accused and was a “fairly minor cog in the wheel”.
She imposed a €5,000 fine on Munnelly with six months to pay or six months in prison in default.
The judge had adjourned the case in February 2008 on hearing the evidence following an application by Patrick Gageby SC, defence counsel for Moriarty and Swalcliffe, to allow new items of disclosure to be considered.
Éanna Mulloy SC, prosecuting, told the judge that the Director of Public Prosecutions had accepted that its duties of disclosure had been “defectively carried out” before cross-examination.
Mr Mulloy tendered Det Garda Declan O’Brien and environmental consultant Donal Ó Laoire to the defence for cross-examination in light of the disclosure made since the sentence hearing.
Det Garda O’Brien and Mr Ó Laoire had given evidence at the February 2008 sentence hearing about the Garda investigation and environmental impact of the dumping respectively.
Det Garda O’Brien agreed with Mr Gageby that he carried out interviews with Mr Ó Laoire in 2006 and was aware before the sentence hearing of a company Mr Ó Laoire “had been privy to establishing” with a view to carrying out remediation work at Whitestown.
He agreed that Mr Ó Laoire had given a statement to gardaí and was an independent environmental consultant to Wicklow County Council.
When asked by Mr Gageby if he was aware at the sentence hearing that Mr Ó Laoire potentially had a conflict of interest, Det Garda O’Brien replied he was aware a complaint had been made and he had investigated it.