A County Fermanagh farmer has been jailed for 9 months for dumping waste from the Irish Republic at his site in Northern Ireland. He is the first person to be imprisoned for such an offence. His wife was also given a four month jail term, which was suspended for two years. The couple were convicted last month of keeping controlled waste without a licence, and an estimated 4,500 tonnes of biodegradable municipal waste was found buried on their 65 acre border farm at Slattinagh near Garrison in December 2003. Some of the waste, which had been traced back to Cork and Wexford, had already affected the local ground water. The farmer admitted being paid between £6,000 and £8,000 to accept the material.
The dumping and keeping of waste in the countryside of Northern Ireland is becoming a common problem, and in a similar story, an Antrim man who dumped 40,000 tonnes of controlled waste on his farm has been fined only £8,000 after pleading guilty to 9 charges under the Waste and Contaminated Land (Northern Ireland) Order SI 1997/2778. The Environment and Heritage Service estimated that the waste, which included scrap cars and building materials, saved the man around £600,000 by not taking it to landfill. The maximum fine for such an offence could have been as much as £20,000, with 6 months in jail.
