An illegal dump has been found on a site owned by the IDA in North County Dublin. The dump is thought to be the biggest discovered in Ireland so far.
Dublin Corporation was laying a sewage pipeline at Belcamp six months ago, close to Dublin Airport, when the waste was accidentally disturbed.
Investigations on the site, which runs to 120 acres, uncovered a mixture of waste, some of which may have been dumped as long ago as 1982. There are also indications that waste may have been dumped during the construction of the M50 motorway.
There is bio-hazardous hospital waste, including glass containers of blood and clinical tubing. There is also a large quantity of industrial waste from a number of North Dublin companies.
These include personnel and management system files from Dublin Airport. The site belongs to the IDA, which bought it for £6 million five years ago, intending to use it as an industrial estate.
However, the IDA points out that it had nothing to do with the dumping and was the innocent purchasers of the land. A spokesman, Colm Donnellan, says that the find highlights the need to deal urgently with waste management in Ireland.
Fingal County Council says that it intends to prosecute anyone who may have been involved in dumping on the site.
