Council clears tonnes of rubbish from illegal dumping ground

Mattresses, fridges, rubber tyres, plastic toys and a kitchen sink – just some of the dumped items cleared out of a field in Ballybane.

Galway City Council’s Environment Department last week spent almost four days clearing the land known locally as ‘Coyne’s Field’, which had become an unofficial dumping ground.

Chair of the Merlin Residents’ Association, Donal Lynch, welcomed the works after a long campaign of lobbying City Hall to get the eyesore and health hazard cleaned up. But he said measures must be taken by the Council to avert a repeat.

“I’d say they filled ten or twelve lorry tipper loads of stuff. I’d say it would’ve been 20 or 30 tonnes of waste,” said Mr Lynch

“That’s the second time they cleared it. There was about six years’ waste thrown in there including household waste. A lot of taxpayers’ money went in to removing it. It’s terrible on the environment, and on funding.

“They have to put something in place, either a higher wall or a fence, to stop that from happening again because it will recur unless they put measures in place to prevent it from happening. A lot of it is unscrupulous waste collectors. I very much welcome the works undertaken by the Council because there were rodents and everything up there,” said Mr Lynch.

He said the works were carried out under the anti-dumping initiative and were Government funded.

Councillor Owen Hanley also welcomed the job.

“Residents have had to deal with the smell and sight of the waste for too long, it attracts vermin and causes environmental damage. In the short term, railings should be installed to prevent this behaviour here again but in the long term we need a proactive approach to ensure that every household is getting rid of their waste responsibly,” Cllr Hanley said.