{"id":185770,"date":"2025-11-17T18:57:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T18:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/185770\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T18:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T18:57:11","slug":"limerick-company-faces-prosecution-over-illegal-burning-of-vegetation-at-commercial-yard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/185770\/","title":{"rendered":"Limerick company faces prosecution over illegal burning of vegetation at commercial yard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A COUNTY\u00a0Limerick company will avoid a criminal conviction relating to the illegal burning of waste on lands it owns if it pays the costs of the local authority, a judge has said.<\/p>\n<p>Smithform\u00a0Holdings\u00a0SB Limited is being prosecuted by Limerick City and County Council arising from two incidents at a commercial yard in Drombanna in March of this year.<\/p>\n<p>In court, executive engineer Dermot Lambe testified that he was alerted by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/section\/131\/news\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Limerick Fire and Rescue<\/a>\u00a0service on March 24, after crews\u00a0attended the scene of a fire involving the burning vegetation at the premises.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mr Lambe said he visited the site &#8211; at Robin Hill, Drombanna &#8211;\u00a0 the following day with the intention of informing the business owners\u00a0that they are not legally\u00a0permitted\u00a0to\u00a0burn waste, including vegetation.<\/p>\n<p>However, upon arrival, he discovered that burning was\u00a0once again\u00a0taking place.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read next:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/news\/1937087\/go-back-to-your-own-country-man-appears-in-court-following-spate-of-attacks-in-limerick.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">\u2018Go back to your own country\u2019: Man appears in court following spate of attacks in Limerick<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The witness recounted how operatives on the site were instructed to extinguish the fire, which they did by covering it with soil.\u00a0When\u00a0the business owner arrived, Mr Lambe advised him that burning waste of any kind was not permissible.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mr Lambe told Judge John King that there had been no further incidents involving the company.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When asked by solicitor Michael O&#8217;Donnell Mr Lambe confirmed the presence of a skip on the site but clarified that the material being burned included plastic waste in addition to vegetation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Giving evidence, Mr Lambe stated that under current legislation, the burning of any waste, including vegetation is not permitted. He said the previous system of issuing permits allowing the burning of vegetation ended\u00a0 in November 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is no provision under any act for burning. It&#8217;s just not permitted,&#8221; he stated, adding\u00a0that under the\u00a0Waste Management Act, the only legal means of disposal is through\u00a0approved channels, such as licensed waste facilities.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding the defendant company, he accepted the waste (being burned) was entirely from internal operations and that it had not been\u00a0imported\u00a0onto the site from external sources.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mr O&#8217;Donnell said the waste in question was linked to ongoing clearance work at the premises, which had changed ownership earlier in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The solicitor told the presiding judge that his client was anxious &#8220;to deal with it (the case) at the first opportunity&#8221; to which Judge King acknowledged that the business operator\u00a0\u201cseems to have learned his lesson.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The case was\u00a0adjourned\u00a0until\u00a0February 6, 2026, for the discharge of prosecution costs amounting to \u20ac1,232.<\/p>\n<p>If the monies are paid by the next court date, he indicated he will apply the Prohibition Act, leaving the company without a conviction.<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A COUNTY\u00a0Limerick company will avoid a criminal conviction relating to the illegal burning of waste on lands it&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,1844,7587,9213,60106,12818,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-185770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-limerick","19":"tag-limerick-city","20":"tag-limerick-city-and-county-council","21":"tag-limerick-courthouse","22":"tag-limerick-district-court","23":"tag-main-news","24":"tag-mainnews","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-top-stories","27":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115566571894442070","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}