A pharmaceutical company has brought High Court proceedings aimed at stopping its prosecution on charges arising from the export of the company's waste to Belgium.
The court was told the waste illegally ended up being used in feed for animals and the consequent slaughter of Belgium's national herd. The charges faced by Wyeth Medica Ireland are serious and could lead to fines of up to €10 million or imprisonment for a maximum term of 10 years, the court heard.
AHP Manufacturing BV, trading as Wyeth Medica Ireland, with offices at Newbridge, Co Kildare - a division of a Netherlands based multinational pharmaceutical group - yesterday secured leave to bring judicial review proceedings challenging its prosecution in proceedings which had been listed before Naas District Court next month.
Wyeth also secured an interim injunction from Mr Justice Michael Peart restraining the prosecution pending the outcome of the judicial review. The action is against the DPP, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the State.
Applying for leave, Patrick Hanratty SC, for Wyeth, said it was facing a number of summonses alleging breaches, on occasions between 2000 and 2001, of certain conditions of its Integrated Pollution Control Licences and sections of the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992.
It is alleged the company breached conditions of its licence including a requirement that waste sent off-site for recovery or disposal shall only be conveyed to a waste contractor as agreed by the EPA and only transported from the site of the activity to the site of recovery/disposal in a manner which will not adversely affect the environment.
In the company's grounding statement, it was stated the waste was collected (by arrangement with Cara Environmental Technology Ltd) by Johnston Logistics Ltd (known as Johnston Haulage at the relevant times) and Celtic Logistics, none of which companies, it was stated, were prohibited under the 1992 Act from collecting such waste.
Mr Hanratty said the prosecutions arose from the disposal of waste from Wyeth's facility. That waste was transported from Ireland by a logistics company to Belgium, where it was to be properly disposed of. However, the waste - rinse water containing Medroxyprogesterone Acetate - was not properly disposed of in Belgium and was in fact illegally used in animal feed which resulted in the slaughter of Belgium's national herd.
Wyeth contends there is no provision of the EPA Act which allows the agency to stipulate the identity of a waste contractor and therefore the imposition by the EPA of certain conditions on the company's pollution control licences are unlawful, unconstitutional and void.