A local authority has been forced to spend more than €950,000 cleaning up toxic sludge from fuel smuggling over the past four years.
Louth County Council said it had carried out more than 128 separate clean-up operations since the beginning of 2019 at an average cost of around €6,400 on each occasion.
Figures released by the local authority showed the bill for cleaning up after laundered fuel activity came to almost €300,000 last year alone.
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That covered the cost of 38 separate operations, each at a cost of €7,122, according to data released under FOI.
In the first quarter of this year, four instances of diesel sludge dumping were discovered by Louth County Council, which cost a combined €144,000 to deal with.
Overall, this year, approximately €277,000 has been spent dealing with 222 tonnes of diesel sludge that was dumped, most of it in the north of the county.
Fuel laundering activity is particularly problematic in the county due to its location and a long history of smuggling operations.
In March, gardaí seized their first ever mobile fuel laundering plant near Dundalk in an operation that also yielded 14,000 litres of marked mineral fuel, two oil tankers, and bleaching products.
Retail Ireland has previously estimated the state up to €150 million in lost tax revenues every year through illegal fuels.
A spokeswoman for Louth County Council said their activity in tackling sludge dumping was funded by the Department of the Environment’s Waste Policy and Enforcement Division through a grant for diesel laundering remediation.
She said: “This support ensures that this illegal activity does not divert funds away from other Louth County Council activities.”
The spokeswoman said at most dump sites, sludge was contained within bulk containers which had largely prevented bigger spills.
She added: “However, the carelessness with which the containers are dumped out of vans or off trailers has resulted in some minor spillages in recent years, where [these containers] have split.
“So far, we have been lucky that no major quantity of diesel sludge has made it to a stream or river, which would undoubtedly result in significant environmental harm and could pose a threat to human and animal health.
“We operate a 24-hour, 365 day a year call out system to ensure a thorough clean-up of all dumped and spilled sludge is carried out as soon as possible, when we become aware of an incident.”
The council said they were also in continuous contact with gardaí and the Revenue to try and combat diesel smuggling and urged people and businesses to be “mindful” when sourcing fuel.
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