Mr. Jim Crilly:

I am a vet who has worked for Teagasc. I was part of the Teagasc investigation in 2004. I found the cadmium in the eaves. I then retired and went off for a while. I went back to Kilkenny in 2007 to speak at a local veterinary meeting. When I was talking to some of the lads after the meeting, they mentioned the Brennan case and I said I had found cadmium there three or four years previously. Subsequently, I drove into Mr. Brennan's yard one day. I had not seen him in four years. I asked him what the story was. I got involved again in representing him. I would like to explain to the committee what happened. We will start with the break-in and then we will go to the cover-up, so to speak.

The brick factory was the problem. That is not in dispute. Perhaps someone wants to dispute that with me. We have been trying to get this discussion going, but nobody will argue to us that it was not the factory. We got as far as Brussels in 2012 before we were closed down. They said there would be an independent scientific evaluation of the data. The video can be seen on YouTube. At the end of the meeting, the deputy chief veterinary inspector proposed that because of the dispute about the facts of the case, the best thing would be an independent scientific evaluation. This was proposed by the Department of agriculture, which said it would be done by the joint research committee, and seconded by Mairead McGuinness, who was at the meeting and had previously sat on the petitions committee in Brussels, which is known as PETI. The meeting closed with the Italian chair saying she would put the petition in abeyance pending an independent scientific review of the data because at the previous three meetings the Irish authorities had not shown up. They showed up in 2012 and made some kind of a case that it was not the factory. We lobbied PETI to ascertain when it would set this investigation up and when we could talk to the people who were going to do it.

Without discussion, consent or notice to Mr. Brennan, his file was transferred from the petitions committee in Brussels to the petitions committee in the Oireachtas. That transfer appeared to occur without any documentation on the movement of the files or the decisions that were made. We made inquiries through MEPs in Brussels and the secretariat of the petitions committee in Brussels was unable to identify any records as to who had sanctioned the transfer of the case to Dublin or on what terms it had been transferred. Mr. Brennan was never informed of it. We only found out about it one year later. I have documented all of this and the committee has copies and can work its way through it. The committee in Dublin said it would start again. It was eight years in Brussels. It was transferred without a covering note saying it had found in favour of the petitioner and was referring the case back to national authorities, in order that they may address the issues raised. Instead, the Oireachtas petitions committee told Mr. Brennan that if he wanted to open a case with it, he should to write it all down and fire it in, which we did. We got a letter saying that on legal advice, it was of the opinion the case would not be eligible for consideration by Oireachtas petitions committee. Before the committee decided it was ineligible, the Dáil ended and when the Dáil session ends, all the petitions for that Dáil fall. It is at the discretion of the petitions committee to reinstate them in the next Dáil if it so wishes. We wrote to the committee and inquired if it so wished. It answered that it did not so wish. The case was still open in Brussels at this stage, because all Brussels had said, as is its normal operating procedure, was that it had referred the case back to the national authorities on the basis of its findings that the petitioner was owed an apology. I think they actually said that. He is owed a bit more than an apology but that is what they said. The Irish authorities should apologise to him. In December 2014, the month Phil Hogan took over as Commissioner, Mr. Brennan's case was closed by the PETI secretariat, not by the members and not in session. The PETI secretariat closed his case in Brussels. Again, this was done without discussion, without consent, or without notification. The petitions committee in Brussels was again unable to produce any documentation relating to who closed the case, or why the case was closed in Brussels. However, closing the case in Brussels meant Mr. Brennan had no way back. If the Oireachtas petitions committee decided that the case was ineligible or had lapsed and would not be reinstated, he could not now go back to Brussels.

Now we are here. That is A, B, C and D of what happened. That is where we got to. It is all documented. In fact the committee has more of the documents than I do. There was a visit to Brussels by the Oireachtas petitions committee at the time it was being set up. A lady on that team said that as they were leaving Brussels, somebody handed her Mr. Brennan's file and told her to take it with her. There was no cover note, no terms, no nothing. She said the file was so big that on the flight home she had to book it in. It was too big for carry-on. There have been some issues lately with the planning people. This struck me as I was reading the newspapers the other day about An Bord Pleanála. They referred to misgovernance issues including "a lapse in adherence to operating procedures and in the recording of file movements and decisions". Without wishing to disparage anybody, we have two very well-documented cases where there appear to be misgovernance issues including lapses of adherence to operating procedures in the recording of file movements and decisions. These were lapses both by the people who handed over the files, and the people who received the files. I am sure receiving a Government file without the proper documentation and authority and procedures is frowned upon. That is the cover-up.

We will go to the break-in now. The break-in is the factory, and we will go back to the factory. The factory has been there since God was a boy, since the 1960s or something. It was producing bricks because they closed the coal mine and they wanted work for the people. The integrated pollution control, IPC, licensing system came into operation in 2001. Prior to that there were no emissions limitations or controls at all in the ceramic brick sector. Part of the rationalisation of this stuff was that they would get an IPC licence. The licence was issued in January 2001. At the time of the determination of the licence Ormonde Brick had two kilns. They vented through a common stack 24.4 m high and I have provided a picture of the stack as seen from Mr. Brennan's yard, which is 12 m above the top of the stack. The stack is at the bottom of the valley, steep side, with Mr. Brennan's farmyard and his land going up to the side of it. That is the set-up. They were issued a licence for an emissions limit value, ELV, of 1 kg of fluoride per hour up to 1 January 2006, and 5 mg per cubic metre to apply thereafter. This is why I left this bit to the end as it is all a bit technical. They were allowed to pump out 1 kg of fluoride per hour. That regime operated from January 2001 to December 2006. This was the time of the excitement. It operated 24 hours per day, seven days per week, with two weeks off for the summer holidays, and ten or 12 days at Christmas and new year for relining of kilns or whatever they do. It operated for 93% of the time for six years, 24 hours per day at a permitted level of 1 kg of fluoride per hour for six years. That is a lot of fluoride. Why did they get a licence? We will go the best available technology not entailing excessive costs, BATNEEC, which is the basis for the IPC licence. The BATNEEC is 5 mg if you are abating and 10 mg if you are not abating.