'Merit' in public inquiry into one of Europe's largest illegal dumps

There is "merit" in holding a public inquiry into one of Europe's largest illegal dumps outside Londonderry, Stormont's Environment Minister Andrew Muir has said.

He was speaking after two men were jailed last week for their roles at the site.

The contaminated Mobuoy dump consists of two parcels of land - the City Industrial Waste (CIW) site and the Campsie Sand and Gravel (CSG) site. It is thought to cover more than 100 acres of land or the size of about 70 football pitches.

Environmental activist Dean Blackwood said there should be a public inquiry.

Speaking at Stormont on Monday, Muir said he recognised the "concern and anger" caused by the situation.

He said he had been clear before taking the job of minister that he supported calls for further investigations, saying it could cost up to £700m to remediate the site.

Muir said he would be looking to the government not just for financial help but for assistance with remediation.

Mr Blackwood, a director at Faughan Anglers and principal planner for the Department of Environment up until 2013, said there was a "bubbling lake of toxic waste and no proper remediation work started".

"Not only were big holes allowed to be dug up for this waste to be deposited, they were allowed to be dug outside any regulations," Mr Blackwood told BBC Radio Foyle's North West Today programme, from the site at Campsie.

"The failure of the authorities to act in a proper manner really calls into question the effectiveness of our government departments to regulate and protect the environment," Mr Blackwood said.

"This environmental crime has been described as unprecedented in the UK so you would have expected an unprecedented sentence."

The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) MLA, Mark H Durkan, is to ask the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) to review the sentences.

He said the men had "profited to the tune of over £40m by illegal dumping waste right beside our city's main drinking water supply".

"It's clear they were only interested in their own profits and cared not one bit about the risk this posed to public health or the surrounding environment," he added.

Durkan said the impact was being felt in the area "with the A6 road project being delayed as a result with a knock-on effect on the north west's economy".

"We are now looking at a bill of up to £700m to clean up this site at a time when the public purse is under significant pressure," he added.

He reiterated his party's call for a full public inquiry, adding that progress and investment were needed to make the site safe.

The Northern Ireland Assembly passed a motion for a public inquiry into illegal waste disposal in March 2014.

But in response to a question from the Green Party in 2020, the then agriculture and environment minister Edwin Poots ruled one out.

The DUP MP for East Londonderry, Gregory Campbell, believes the sentences were "very lenient" and is also calling for them to be reviewed.

Speaking to BBC Radio Foyle's North West Today programme on Monday, Campbell said that a public inquiry was a something to consider, but he had concerns over the potential cost.

"That is going to come at significant cost, and the clean-up is going to come at a much more significant cost," Campbell said.

"If anyone thinks that Stormont has a budget that will be able to accommodate that [a public inquiry], then I really think they need a wake-up call - that is just not going to happen.

"We are going to have to go to [the UK] Treasury and say: 'This is of a scale far beyond the Stormont budget,' if we are talking about a public inquiry and a massive clean-up that could cost hundreds of millions of pounds within an already stretched budget."

Sinn Féin said it was "glad to see that some of those responsible have now been held to account".

A spokesperson said the environment minister must determine if a public inquiry "is still necessary to fully address the extent of illegal dumping at the site".

The party had backed an Assembly motion in 2014 calling on then Minister Mark H Durkan to launch a public inquiry.

That, the spokesperson added, "could have examined what exactly happened at the site, how long it went on, who was involved, and who knew about it".

Alderman Darren Guy, from the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), said the sentencing "is far from adequate".

"Like other parties, we would support calls for a full inquiry as we believe that there were more people involved in this crime than the two men now sentenced.

"We believe it is much more important to call for the government and the Daera minister to now find the correct solutions and the funding to begin the massive clean-up of the contaminated Mobuoy site."

Following sentencing on Friday, Agriculture Minister Andrew Muir described the Mobuoy dump scandal as a "sophisticated and deliberate environmental crime of unprecedented scale".

He announced plans to launch a public consultation on a draft remediation strategy for the site.

In a statement to BBC Radio Foyle, NI Water said: "Water undertake sampling and analysis for drinking water quality monitoring with samples taken at the water treatment works, the Service Reservoirs and at customer taps.

"There have been no water quality breaches in the treated drinking water supplied from Carmoney water treatment works that have been related to the Mobuoy waste site."

Financial journalist Paul Gosling told BBC News NI "it is also one of the most dire examples possible of regulatory failure by state bodies in Northern Ireland".

"The outcome will be a massive financial burden for Northern Ireland that will be a blight on the capital and revenue budgets of government here for probably decades to come," he added.

"People will be now asking does the sentence meet the gravity of the crime. The consequences will arguably be more severe for our society than for the perpetrators of the crime."