A Co Kildare farmer who was using his lands as a rubble dump has been ordered to pay the price of "playing games with the High Court".
Padraig Thornton, of Barrackstown, Maynooth, was yesterday ordered to pay £10,000, bringing total penalties for contempt of court over the past year to £27,000.
A legal costs order against him will double that figure. He has already had to pay for removing thousands of tonnes of rubble from his farm to a proper waste dump.
The High Court president, Mr Justice Morris, said Thornton had shown utter disregard for an order to clear his lands of illegally dumped waste material which he had stacked five metres high behind an equestrian centre. Mr Justice Morris added that Thornton had played games with the High Court, first by creating a smokescreen of veiled hopes of obtaining planning permission for the illegal dump and then by giving 101 half-baked excuses for not complying with the court order.
Mr Justice Morris said he visited the site only to find Thornton had split the dump into separate piles of rubble which he had again dumped around his lands on the basis he was using the waste to reinstate hedges and ditches.
The judge said Thornton had continued to make excuses why his lands could not be rid of the eyesore he had created and had stated in sworn affidavits it would take months to clear it all away.
Mr Donal Keane, counsel for North Kildare South Meath Environmental Protection Group, which fought the illegal dumping for the past four years, told the court that in face of committal for contempt Thornton had succeeded in clearing the lands in three days.