Yesterday's decision will restore public confidence in the EPA's ability to tackle the scourge of illegal dumping, writes Tim O'Brien.
Yesterday's announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency that illegally dumped waste should be dug up and disposed of correctly represents something of a vindication for those who have campaigned against illegal dumping for more than a decade.
While EPA deputy director general Padraic Larkin said that each of the other illegal dumps in Wicklow and elsewhere in the State would be judged on a case-by-case basis, the clear disposition of the agency was towards remediation, which involves removal of illegally dumped waste.
There had been palpable dismay in west Wicklow in 2003 when it became known that the largest of the State's illegal dumps - a 250,000-tonne deposit including hospital waste at Whitestown near Baltinglass - had been sold to a company called Brownfield Restoration, which expressed an interest in running a licensed landfill.
Neighbours such as the Bailey family had fought a 10-year battle against the dumping. Family members had taken the registration numbers of lorries serving the landfill and forwarded those numbers to Wicklow County Council, which later said the file had gone missing.
When the council announced in October 2004 that it proposed to deal with Whitestown through the creation of a special landfill on the site, the dismay turned to shock. It appeared to locals that the reward for their 10 years of complaint was that the illegal landfill would be wiped out by the simple expedient of issuing a licence and making it legal.
The EPA let it be known at the time that bankrupting landowners did little to solve the remaining environmental problems.
However, to his credit Minister for the Environment Dick Roche issued a directive in May 2005 that, in future, best practice would require illegally dumped waste to be dug up and he outlined penalties of up to 15 years in jail and fines as high as €15 million for those who transgressed.
Mr Roche had reason to take a tough line. As a TD for Wicklow he had to live with residents' complaints, but his involvement actually went back to public meetings in Blessington on the subject in the early 1990s.
Cracking down on illegal dumping was not popular with many haulage firms, and many landowners opposed - and still oppose to this day - the new legislation. Once lorry-drivers protested outside Wicklow County Council offices about the permit scheme. The following day they drove in slow procession to the Dáil.
But yesterday's decision gives hope to families such as the Baileys that vindication is around the corner.
Longtime Blessington resident Frank Corcoran, who is president of An Taisce, warns of the amount of waste and contaminated soil that now surrounds the rubbish and that ultimately will have to be dug up.
But at last those who put waste in the ground, or allowed it to be put in the ground, may be asked to take it out again.
It is a decision that has restored faith in the EPA among those who have spent a decade writing to various authorities.
Mr Roche said yesterday: "The message should now be clear to all. Anyone whose lands are used for dumping will suffer the full costs of remediation as well as legal costs."