Kill residents threaten action over dump

A CAMPAIGN of civil disobedience is likely if residents of Kill, Co Kildare, fail in their court attempt to stop the State's largest dip being sited beside their village.

Mr Trevor Lyons, a committee member of the Kill Residents' such a campaign would be "the only thing left".

People have been discussing blocking the Naas dual carriage way, according to Mr Lyons. "It will push the issue back into the political domain.

"People have been saying that you could disrupt the whole country. I am not advocating this but I can see the situation arising."

Mr Lyons said neither he nor the committee would have any part in organising an action "where someone might be injured". "But if it was organised I'd be out on the road too", he said.

"We have always said we should go through the courts but it's now looking like we are coming to the end of the line.

"We have been holding people back for the last six years but they probably can't be held back much longer," Mr Lyons said.

The group is considering a Supreme Court appeal against Wednesday's High Court ruling that it cannot take its case to the European Court.

A number of spokespersons said such an appeal was inevitable. Villagers who spoke to The Irish Times yesterday seemed pessimistic, however, about their chances of success in the courts. Work on the dump is scheduled to begin early next year.

"The whole thing looks gloomy at the moment," said Mr James Davis. "The courts were all about points of law, not about the suitability of having the dump in Kill."

"We are in despair at this stage," said Ms Alice McLysagh, when asked how the 1,500 residents now felt.

Ms McLysagh lives on the narrow road down which, she says, if the dump is established, trucks will pass every three minutes, six days a week.

"There is something grossly, flawed about the legal process said Ms Angela Walsh, a committee member who has a farm close to the site of the proposed dump. "If you live as near to it as we do you can't think in terms of failure.

"I'm not for civil disobedience. I think the campaign should remain within the law. But the people are frustrated and I would not be surprised if people did break the law," Ms Walsh said.

"It is intolerable really that a small community like this should be victimised and bullied," said Ms Jennifer Lyons, who, like her husband Trevor, is on the residents' committee.

Asked if she would support a campaign of public disobedience, she said. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that. It would be terrible if people felt that was the only way they could defend the community."

The villagers are angry with the courts, An Bord Pleanala, and the Minister for the Environment, Mr Howlin.

"He pontificates about people looking after the environment and Kill has been to the forefront of the tidy towns for 15 years, and what happens, we get Dublin's rubbish," said Ms Lyons.

"Dublin has a waste crisis and we have to pay for it," she said, referring to legal costs accumulated by the residents.

The dump is planned for a 150 acre sandpit at Arthurstown, outside Kill. The site was worked up to the late 1970s but is now overgrown and inhabited by wildlife. The intention is to "rebuild" the hill which once existed there, using bales of packed waste brought by truck from Dublin. A pipe bringing water to Dublin runs alongside the site.