Mr. Dara Lynott:

The history of Kerdiffstown is that there was landfilling there since the 1960s. Obviously, legislation was introduced in 1996 but the agency did not issue a licence until a number of years after that, by which time it received an application that was suitable for us to issue a licence. That licence required the building of a modern landfill cell at the site. The business model presented to the agency was that the operator would go into the historical waste, recycle what it could and put what it could not recycle into the new landfill cell. The new landfill cell was built, a bond was put in place and it demonstrated to the agency that the cell was to be used. The cell was never used until near the end.

We quickly realised that the storage of waste was becoming a problem in that site. The agency reviewed the licence to restrict the storage of waste on the site. Within a year of that we realised that the storage of waste was continuing there and we then prepared a dual case, one to the High Court and one to the DPP. The nature of these cases is quite complex. It took over a year to prepare them. The agency successfully brought the case to the High Court. The High Court sided with the EPA and demanded that the company cease the deposition of all waste on site. Within a number of months of that successful High Court case the company went into liquidation and abandoned the site. Subsequently, there was vandalism at the site and the fire started. The DPP case is ongoing. The latest date we have is that it will come to court in October 2015.

There is quite a strong case of regulation, but the agency can only implement the powers that it has and it exercised all power available to it in respect of Kerdiffstown.

With regard to Aughinish Alumina, again that site has been licensed since 1996 or 1997, which is quite a long time. There have been a significant number of inspections and audits at that site.

The financial provision that the agency accepted in 1996-97 was a parental guarantee by the owner of the site at the time. There have been a reviews of that licence in the meantime to facilitate not only new legislation under the mining waste directive and other legislation such as the industrial emissions directive but also a major expansion of the facility to include a repository for red mud. The red mud has been the subject of considerable debate as to whether it is hazardous or non-hazardous. In February 2013, the European Commission wrote that, in its view, the red mud was a non-hazardous material. That is not to say that hazardous materials are not dealt with at the site in question. It deals with salt cake which, by reason of its pH, has hazardous properties. The Commission looked into and reviewed the licensing of the facility by the Environmental Protection Agency under all applicable European Union legislation, namely, the integrated pollution, prevention and control, IPPC, directive and industrial emissions directive as well as requirements under the habitats directive and the environmental impact assessment directive, and found that the agency has licensed the facility appropriately. As with every bond or financial provision that is put in place, however, things change. When a facility expands, the financial provision must also expand. The EPA is in negotiations with Aughinish Alumina to provide, to the fullest extent, for the financial provision that is necessary.