Rubbish.!

national | bin tax / household tax / water tax | opinion/analysis Tuesday February 22, 2005 00:56 by John McDermott - www.soldiersofdestiny.org Spain

The battle continues

The Cork campaign goes on,Wicklow fights on the beacheads ,and a fierce guerilla campaign sees helicopters in action in the Kerry mountains.

Anti rubbish offensive in the Kerry mountains....

Prosecutions are pending over illegal dumping which has sullied one of Wicklow,s finest beaches. A massive clean up got under way in february 2005 and Magheramore has now been returned to its former glory.

The land in front of the beach is owned privately and the €2,500 clean-up was carried out by the council with the extensive co-operation of landowner, well known property developer Niall Mellon.

Wicklow County Council enforcement staff have once again blamed bogus rubbish collectors for the dumping.

More than 50 bags of domestic waste along with fridges, cookers, nappies, clothes and a headless statue of the Virgin Mary were strewn over an area used as a car park, just metres from the beach.

Council enforcement officer, Wayne Jones, confirmed that the council intended to initiate legal proceedings against the culprits within the next two weeks.

He had found evidence, including household bills, during a search of the dumped material. He said the rubbish emanated from Wicklow town.
In another incident, a local woman was accused of running illegal waste operations in the ever controversial county of wicklow,the garden of Ireland where anything goes -thanks Fianna Fail, Roadstone appear to have some competition in the illegal dumping sector.!
In February 2005 a woman appeared before Wicklow District Court over allegations she was involved in illegally collecting waste without a permit ,but was given the benefit of the probation act.

Mary O'Brien, 23 Ocean View, Ballyguile, claimed all the green waste spotted in a van heading from Wicklow town to her house came from her own back garden, and denied an illegal waste collection operation was running out of her home.

Andrew Lawless, Senior Engineer for Wicklow County Council,dutifully took it upon himself to followed a large pick-up truck full to the brim with tree branches, twigs and bits of shrubs from outside the Grand Hotel to the address of Mary O'Brien on February 5, 2004.

She was served notices requiring her to provide information to the county council. After receiving no reply, another letter was sent to 23 Ocean View requiring information on the quantity of waste and the destination of the waste source.

Again no correspondence was forthcoming, leading the council to believe that the vehicle was carrying waste without a permit.

O'Brien told the court that the green waste was the result of renovations being carried out in her home and that all the truck's full load came from her back garden. She denied any suggestion that she was wilfully operating an illegal business.

Defence Solicitor David Tarrant, produced a receipt in court from The Murrough recycling centre dated February 5 which he said proved his client's load had been disposed off in the correct manner.

Mr. Tarrant told Judge Donnchadh O Buachalla that his client was a settled Traveller who had difficulties with forms and documents and this was the reason why she failed to reply to any of the council's correspondence.

Judge O Buachalla found the facts of the case proven, but said he wouldn't proceed to conviction. Nice to see a little humanity,from time to time, in our judiciary.!
Meanwhile back in the Kerry mountains,an anti illegal rubbish dumping campaign is in full swing, and it looks like the Vietnamese war all over again,with the council hiring everything except helicopter gunships, to intimidate the local "knackers" who are evading the rubbish taxes.
Far away in the southern hemisphere,the government of Columbia has received new helicopters which are currently, (with generous american funding) spraying their farmers coca growing fields with pesticide, to eliminate the scourge of cocaine which arrives on american shores due to its insatiable demand as a fashionable drug in the U.S. coctail party circuit. Down in the Magillacuddy reeks of county Kerry something similiar is underway. The local councillors-heretefore famous for building McMansions on every hillock and Bohereen-are also into high tech weaponry to combat and eliminate the illegal dumpers and rubbish tax evaders who covertly burn their waste by moonlight ,in the vast emptiness of the Kerry mountains.

KERRY County Council is paying thousands of euro for a "stealth helicopter" to enforce Bertie,s new stealth tax on rubbish and to catch people who illegally burn or dump rubbish,thus evading the latest of Fianna Fail,s stealth tax strictures -which are creating lawlessness and criminality and in every nook and cranny of the Emerald Isle.
Perhaps the campaign will usefully employ thousands of redundant Health Board administrators who could be redeployed in a new "Rubbish Tax Enforcement Agency" similiar to the american style "D.E.A."(Drugs Enforcement Agency) or the "Gestapo" security service of the Third Reich.

The big-brother approach by the Gombeen councillors has prompted a number of the mountainy kerrymen,and farmers alike,to contact local representatives, and has infuriated Councillor Brendan Cronin.

The helicopter hire costs Kerry County Council over €1,000 per hour and has been used more frequently by the council’s Environment Section in recent months. The helicopter is usually hired for periods of an hour to two hours and can cover one third of the entire county in one trip.

A senior council official confirmed to "The Kerryman" newspaper this week that helicopters are used by Kerry County Council from time to time, usually by the Roads or Planning Sections. However, he confirmed that the council’s get-tough approach to illegal burning and dumping has now incorporated the use of helicopters. A north-Cork based company confirmed to The Kerryman that it has hired its helicopter to Kerry County Council on a number of occasions. The company’s hire charge is €1,100 per hour.Whether it owned by a company set up by a local Fianna Fail councillor is uncertain,but to date we can confirm it has not been fitted with machine guns or other deadly weaponry.The possibility of using deterrants such as non-lethal "slurry bombs" is being investigated, but the I.F.A.have declared that this would only add to the current , countrywide, nitrate pollution of lakes and rivers and further infuriate the rubbish dumpers.

Over the last year, up to four officials at any one time have flown in the helicopter and photographed what they deemed to be illegal dumping or burning and relied on the photographic evidence to initiate an investigation.

However, no photographic evidence gathered from a helicopter has been used in a court prosecution and officials hold reservations about the admissibility of photographs taken from ‘big brother’ in the sky.

The most recent statistics show that the number of convictions secured by Kerry County Council for illegal dumping is relatively small. Despite spending thousands of euro on helicopter hire and a total of €1.4 million of ratepayers money on investigating illegal dumping, the local authority secured just two convictions in 2003. It investigated 389 cases in the same year.

Independent Councillor Brendan Cronin launched a scathing attack on the council’s ‘big brother’ approach this week. He tabled a motion for a meeting on Wednesday on the issue in an effort to get answers from council officials about the frequency and cost of helicopter use.

“This is new dimension and the big brother in the sky approach is quite disturbing,” he said.