The Irish Wildlife Trust (IWT) has turned down a court-mandated donation from a property developer who was spared a criminal conviction after being found to have “entombed” a badger sett on a site in west Dublin.
Experts told a court that a family of badgers may have been suffocated after being covered in tree trunks and many tonnes of soil at a property near Citywest.
Con McCarthy (61), of Greenogue Business Park, Rathcoole, Co Dublin, whose firm is building warehouse units in Browns Barn, appealed a conviction and fine of €5,000 for offences under the Wildlife Act.
In hearing the appeal at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court last week, Judge Jonathan Dunphy varied the earlier order of the District Court, applying the Probation Act and ordering Mr McCarthy to make a donation of €15,000.
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The trust, which was one of the court-ordered recipients of the donation, said it has “declined the donation due to the circumstance of this case”.
“At a time when nature is under huge pressure from significant habitat loss and damage we need our courts to be tough on wildlife crime and send a signal to would-be perpetrators that if found guilty they will face a full conviction for their crimes including a criminal record,” said IWT general manager Kieran Flood.
“IWT reserves the right to refuse donations and in this case we are choosing not to accept this donation.”
The trust said it was in support of the National Parks and Wildlife Service’s position that the decision of the court could be viewed as a message that a person could “buy their way out of a conviction”.
The court heard evidence from Kieran Buckley, an officer of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, that the badger sett in question had been covered in “trunks of trees and many, many tonnes of clay, which basically entombed the badgers”.
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