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A High Court judge has fined a mother and her son € 6.26 million, to be paid to the County Meath City Council, in contempt of court orders forcing them to clean up two illegal landfills on their farm in Enfield. .
Up to 100,000 tons of waste, including asbestos, was dumped into two unauthorized areas comprising three acres on the 253-acre farm over a three-year period through October 2014.
The farm, in Ballynakill, Rathcor, Enfield, is owned by Eileen Hendy and run by her son, Fred.
In a ruling released Monday, Judge Richard Humphreys said three years had passed since another Superior Court judge ordered the Hendys to take steps to clean up the sites. They were found in contempt of that order last July and were not entitled to more time to comply.
The most appropriate option, and the one sought by the city council, was for the court to fine them 6.26 million euros in remediation costs, which would be charged on the land, he said.
The fact that the remediation costs are likely to exceed your means is “irrelevant,” he said.
Property rights
While his lawyer had argued that a fine would infringe on his property and other rights, those rights were subordinate to the requirement to comply with court orders, which they had not done, the judge said. The fine is “coercive”, not punitive, as it was not intended to punish them for their three-year contempt, but rather to ensure that reparation occurs, he added.
Judge Humphreys said it goes without saying that the Hendys cannot be jailed for failing to pay the balance of the fine once their assets have been depleted.
In 2016, the council had obtained orders from then-Superior Court Judge Seamus Noonan against the Hendys with the aim of securing the remediation of the landfills in accordance with the recommendations of the Environmental Protection Agency. He ordered the Hendys to pay the costs, not quantified, for that remediation.
The court was told in 2016 that the cost of treating the waste was estimated to be around € 2 million if the sites were “plugged” and left in place and that it would be around € 6 million if the waste were removed and treated in an installation.
Mrs. Hendy lives with her daughter in a house on the lands, while Fred Hendy and his family live in another house nearby.
During the 2016 hearing, Hendy said that she cultivates the land and that neither her mother nor her sister had any role in the waste activities.
The council stated that the diaries kept by Mr. Hendy indicated that he was paid around € 175,000 between 2011-2012 to collect waste at rates considerably lower than what he would have had to pay to authorized landfills.
The council had also sued a waste company and several haulers, but the claims against those parties were rejected after Judge Noonan raised questions about the appropriateness of the evidence.
Last year, the council filed a contempt process against the Hendys and Judge Humprey, at a hearing last July, both of them declared in contempt.
Based on that finding, he considered more submissions and passed judgment on them on Monday. It found the Hendys did not have a valid legal complaint about the council’s procedure with the contempt matter.
‘Fool’s task’
The council’s main concern is that the lands are being remedied and, despite arguments on behalf of the Hendys that they have tried alternative solutions, they have done nothing effective over a three year period and it would be “foolish” to give them a new one. chance to start doing something now, he said.
That meant the council itself had to remediate the lands and had to draw on the assets of respondents to do so, he said.
Only three of the farm’s 253 acres are contaminated, and that means a large amount of land could be available for sale, he said. Eileen Hendy had eight ninety shares of them, while a ninth was owned by her late husband and the lands included the houses of both respondents.
An affidavit of resources on behalf of the Hendys referred to a piece of land worth 665,000 euros, but that was questioned by the council and there may need to be a cross-examination, he said. The affidavit also said there are no mortgages or charges on the land.
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