Councillor de Burca in High Court Action over Waste Privatisation

Green Party councillor, Deirdre de Burca, has been refused a court injunction to reverse the privatisation of waste

There are at least 80 illegal dumps in Wicklow

collection in the Garden County in a high court judgement delivered last Friday. In delivering his judgement, 18 months after councillor de Burca originly took the case, Judge Aindrias O' Cuiv acknowledged the importance of the case and said that it highlighted matters of concern in relation to the implementation of EU waste directives.

Councillor de Burca maintained that the decision to privatise waste collection in Wicklow had been a mistake and said that the concerns that prompted her to take the case had been borne out by recent discoveries of illegal dumping in Wicklow. "There has clearly been a catastrophic breakdown in the regulation of waste collection and dumping in County Wicklow", she said. "This has extremely serious health, environmental and economic consequences".

In taking the case, councillor de Burca had been seeking a court injunction to force Wicklow County Council to continue to

Cllr. de Burca: "Catastrophic breakdown in waste collection"

collect waste in county Wicklow. She was also demanding that Wicklow County Council prepare a waste management plan and put in place a permit system for waste collection. De Burca welcomed the fact that Wicklow County Council had since implemented the first two of these actions.

The case will be concluded on April 12th when costs will be determined.