The High Court has ordered the director of a waste management company and his wife to remove a 1.6km road built from waste material without planning permission in a Special Area of Conservation.
Mr Justice John Hedigan made the orders against Seán Doyle, a director of Oxigen Environmental Ltd, and his wife Mary Doyle, concerning a road made from waste material from one of the firm’s facilities, built on lands owned by the couple at Portree and Ballymanus, near Vicarstown, Portlaoise.
Laois County Council sought the orders after arguing the roadway was an unauthorised development built on part of the Nore-Barrow SAC and posed a risk to the environment.
The council sought orders under the 1996 Waste Management Act compelling the Doyles, Salterstown, Dunleer, Co Louth to remove the material from the site, dispose of it at a suitable licensed facility and restore the habitats to their original state.
The Doyles had accepted the roadway was built without permission but argued that the best way to rectify the situation was to remove 400 metres of the road. Removing the rest of the road could cause more damage than leaving it there, they argued.
Yesterday, Mr Justice Hedigan ruled that the entire road should be removed. The material used to construct the road was non-inert and contained leachate and it was “hard to accept” that leaving all but 400 metres of the road was the safest option, he said.
The action was adjourned for two weeks when final orders will be made.