EU waste judgment - Time to take environment seriously

Ireland has attained the unenviable label of having Europe’s worst record for waste dumping, with the indictment yesterday by the EU’s highest court of the Government’s shameful environmental record.

The court’s patience and tolerance with the Government’s ambivalence to illegal dumping finally ran out. Between 1997 and 2000 the European Commission received 12 complaints about the country being in breach of a 20-year-old directive.

That directive required states to dispose of waste without risking public health or the environment, and Ireland was found to have tolerated unauthorised landfills in many places and over long periods of time.