Dublin City Council has paid approximately €400,000 to remove a "section" of the illegal Coolock dump which has plagued a community for over a decade, Dublin Live can reveal.
The giant mound of commercial and household rubbish has been building in Moatview Court housing estate for over ten years and has led to fury from local residents. The waste is often dumped in broad daylight, the Dublin Inquirer reports.
After years of dragging their feet on the issue, it appears DCC has finally started to clear the rubbish with almost half a million euro spent clearing a "section" of the rubbish. The figure was confirmed by a DCC official at a recent meeting.
Read more: 'Warnings' not acted on before tragic death of Tony Dempsey in 'drugs den', claims councillor
It is unclear how much more the Council will have to spend to completely remove the mountain of waste. DCC did not respond to queries from Dublin Live at the time of publishing.
Independent Councillor Mannix Flynn said those dumping waste in the housing estate are "organised criminals" who need to be treated as such. He said: "This is organised criminality at the highest level. This is absolutely unacceptable.
"DCC has to fork out hard-earned taxpayers' and ratepayers' money to the tune of €400,000 to clean up a site that is being used to dump commercial waste which is damaging to the environment."
Cllr Flynn said DCC are "somewhat subsidising" those dumping the waste by paying for it to be cleared. He called on the Revenue Commissioners and An Garda Siochana to tackle the issue.
"The criminals that did this are laughing all the way to the bank and it would appear that we as a local authority are somewhat subsidising it by actually having to spend all that money removing that waste," said Cllr Flynn. "And yet we haven't brought any of these individuals to court and we haven't really put any preventative measures in place to stop this happening in the future."
Read next:
Young man stabbed in Dublin city centre apartment as woman arrested
Tent in Dublin back garden advertised on Airbnb for €35 a night
City centre community at breaking point over armed gangs 'fighting every day'
Sign up to the Dublin Live Newsletter to get all the latest Dublin news straight to your inbox.
