The film character Forrest Gump was one of more than 3,000 Arklow people who signed a petition in support of the Arklow sewage treatment plant application, a Bord Pleanála oral hearing heard yesterday.
The petition purported to carry 4,500 signatures or 99 per cent of the adult population of the town, but when Ms Marie-Louise Marshall, a resident of Seabank, earmarked as the location for the plant, counted the petition she found that the actual figure was 3,035.
On scrutinising the signatures she discovered that there were people who had signed for more than one person.
Some people had signed as many as 16 signatures, she told the oral hearing and claimed that Cllr Peter Dempsey had signed twice.
Ms Marshall told the inspector, Mr Paul Caprani, that there were at least 700 signatures without addresses.
"Without addresses it was impossible to know if these people exist, and I suggest that there are actually only 1,404 valid signatures on this petition," she said.
"But it is interesting to see we have such a mythical celebrity as Forrest Gump in our midst."
The former MEP, Ms Nuala Ahern, who was a member of Wicklow County Council in 1991, told the hearing that the council went into committee to discuss the sewage scheme at the behest of the Arklow councillors.
"I find that strange and an appalling way to conduct public business. I have never had occasion to experience anything like it," she said.
Arklow had not looked at alternative sites to Seabank in a proper manner.
She believed that the original application was not only flawed but was not conducted in a proper manner.
Mr Graham Caswell, who kayaks in the river and sails in the bay, said he had to use surgical gloves to haul in ropes because of the raw sewage in the river and on the ropes.
"Arklow does need a proper sewage treatment plant, but having said that, what is proposed for Arklow is only a secondary treatment plant and it is being proposed for the wrong place" he said.
The oral hearing is continuing.
An Bord Pleanála is holding this hearing before making its decision on an appeal by Jeremy and Brendan Hynes and Arklow Holidays, owner of the Caravan Park, against the decision of Wicklow County Council to grant planning permission to Arklow Town Council.