John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

I thank Senator O'Meara for raising this important issue. Her colleague, Deputy Hoctor, has consistently criticised the Department for its slowness in dealing with this issue.

Silvermines has a long history of mining, spanning more than a 1,000 years. Most of this activity took place under private leases or was undertaken by the mineral owners themselves. Mogul Ireland mined zinc and lead at Silvermines. These minerals were both privately and State-owned. The State-owned minerals were worked under a State mining lease which was valid for 33 years from 1965 to December 1998. However, production at the mine ceased in 1982.

Its history of mining has left the Silvermines area with the typical residue of such activity, including old spoil dumps, mineshafts and derelict buildings. The most significant of these is Mogul's tailings management facility, TMF, at Gortmore, west of Silvermines village. This facility is a purpose-built ring dam designed to be a disposal site for the company's mining waste. Minerals were extracted from the mined ore by grinding the rock into fine particles at a processing plant and using chemical agents to release the metals. Most of the resulting residue, called tailings, was disposed of as slurry in the Gortmore TMF.

In the 1980s, local residents reported contaminated dust blows coming from the surface of the Gortmore TMF as the tailings dried out. Mogul Ireland, as owners of the TMF, implemented a plan to develop grass on the tailings to prevent future dust blows. Despite spending as much as €630,000 on remedial works since 1982, the company was not able to create a permanent self-sustaining grass cover on the facility.