Environment Minister Arlene Foster has had a meeting with her Dublin counterpart, John Gormley, about the problems associated with the return of illegal waste that has been dumped in Northern Ireland. The two politicians were speaking in the margins at the first British Irish Council Sectoral (Environment) meeting to be held since the return of devolution.
Following the meeting, Ms Foster said she had a constructive conversation with Mr Gormley and had used the opportunity to propose a way forward on the issue. She also revealed that the pair had discussed coastal zone management and climate change.
In recent months, Northern Ireland's Environment and Heritage Service (EHS) has successfully prosecuted two people who have been dumping waste from the Republic of Ireland. In the first case, a man from Scarva in County Down was fined a total of £5,000 for breaches of waste management legislation. He was found by the EHS operating a site, without the necessary licence, which contained controlled waste in the form of scrap metal, end-of-life vehicles and parts of vehicles. In the second case a man from Ballymoney was ordered to pay a total of £3,500 for operating a waste management site illegally.
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