Written answers
Thursday, 5 February 2015
Department of Environment, Community and Local Government
Fuel Laundering
Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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279. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the arrangements, that he has put in place to meet with the Minister for the Environment in the Northern Ireland Executive, Oireachtas Members from Counties Cavan, Monaghan and Louth and Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly in County Armagh to meet in the Armagh-Louth-Monaghan area to discuss the ongoing damage caused by the illegal trade in fuel as requested by a number of Deputies during a Topical Issue debate on 21 January 2015; when this meeting will take place; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5345/15]
Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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288. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the estimated cost of cleaning up each illegal plant; and the cost per annum for the cleaning up of illegal fuel laundering plants. [5428/15]
Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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289. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the current arrangements for the cost of clean-ups; the person-body that pays, and to whom they pay for the clean up of fuel laundering plants. [5429/15]
Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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290. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the number of illegal fuel-sludge dumps that have been uncovered in the past five years per annum and by county. [5430/15]
Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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291. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the level of human and environmental damage and danger posed by fuel laundering plants and by illegal sludge dumps. [5431/15]
Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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292. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the amount that has been paid to clean-up fuel sludge dumps, per annum and per county. [5432/15]
Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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293. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government his plans to change the process of paying for the clean-up of fuel laundering plants and diesel and fuel sludge. [5433/15]
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 279 and 288 to 293, inclusive, together.
Enforcement in relation to illegal diesel laundering activities is primarily a matter for the Revenue Commissioners from the point of view of avoiding loss of revenue to the Exchequer. My Department assists local authorities in carrying out their role as competent authorities under waste legislation, which is to take the necessary measures, on behalf of the State, to ensure that any waste generated and left abandoned by diesel launderers is disposed of without endangering human health and without harming the environment.
Approximately 1,200 incidents of diesel laundering waste dumping have been dealt with by local authorities to date and my Department has up to now reimbursed the costs associated with such disposal on a case by case basis. The majority of the clean-up operations have taken place in Louth and Monaghan with 596 and 509 sites, respectively. Similar clean-up operations have also been carried out in Counties Cavan, Donegal, Offaly, Meath and Waterford.
Details of the significant amount s provided by my Department from the Environment Fund since 2008 on a per county basis are set out in the table.
| Year | Louth County Council | Monaghan County Council | Offaly County Council | Cavan County Council | Donegal County Council | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | €448,460 | €109,615 | €558,075 | |||
| 2009 | €314,678 | €45,632 | €360,310 | |||
| 2010 | €246,211 | €28,414 | €29,270 | €303,895 | ||
| 2011 | €939,315 | €89,588 | €1,028,903 | |||
| 2012 | €1,452,267 | €347,350 | €23,458 | €1,823,075 | ||
| 2013 | €693,048 | €150,946 | €40,753 | €884,747 | ||
| 2014 | € 706,159 | € 601,244 | €1,307,403 | |||
| Total | € 4,800,138 | € 1,372,789 | €29,270 | €23,458 | €40,753 | € 6,266,408 |
There is strong and active co-operation on this and other waste management issues between the relevant enforcement authorities on both sides of the Border, involving An Garda Síochána, the Police Service of Northern Ireland and other enforcement agencies. My own Department, as part of on-going cooperation on repatriation of illegally deposited waste in Northern Ireland, has held discussions with the Northern Ireland authorities on the need to develop a mechanism for dealing with waste from cross-border diesel washings which would be factored into the overall discussions on waste repatriation. These discussions are on-going.
As indicated previously, I have written to my counterpart in the Northern Ireland Executive, Minister Mark Durkan, to highlight again the problems being faced by border counties exposed to the consequences of environmental crime and I have signalled to him that this is an issue that I will be raising at the next meeting of the North South Ministerial Council in May. The Council meets in the Environment Sector in order to make decisions on common policies and approaches in a cross-border context in areas such as environmental protection, pollution, water quality management and waste management and this is, I believe, the most appropriate forum to address this serious issue from a waste and water quality perspective.
The illegal deposition of waste material arising from diesel laundering activities presents the local authorities with major difficulties as the task of cleaning up the material needs to be dealt with to avoid threats to the environment. The laundering process requires the use of chemicals such as sulphuric acid and bleaching agents and results in a waste by-product, a tar-like chemical compound or sludge, with significant potential for environmental pollution, particularly in relation to watercourses.
I believe that a complete solution to this problem must necessarily involve effective and co-ordinated enforcement of the law from both a revenue and waste management perspective. In that context, my Department continues to liaise with representatives of the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, the local authorities concerned and the EPA’s Office of Environmental Enforcement to seek to identify more effective enforcement solutions and these engagements will continue.
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