The council met local residents Monday to talk about options. Previous ideas have included housing, sports facilities, and a Traveller resource centre.
“I was lying in my hospital bed and I just kept thinking, ‘God, please don’t let me die. I want to live to see the dump gone,’” says resident Annette Flanagan.
The council would spend approximately €10 million to remove the waste and build a wall around the site, said Dublin City Council’s chief executive, Owen Keegan.
“We’re just classed as second-class citizens, that’s what we are,” said Annette Flanagan, who lives nearby. “And this would never go on anywhere else. It wouldn’t.”
Local residents and councillors say they want more amenities and have not been consulted, which the council explains by saying it is still at an early stage.
Engineers were tasked by the council with working out what’s there. None of the pollutants they found present a significant human health risk, according to the report.
Local groups and residents have different ideas for what the community in north Dublin needs: whether housing, a community centre, or a well-maintained park.
An EPA protocol says any illegal landfill near homes “should” be remediated in “the shortest practicable time”, and after assessing what’s in it. An FOI response suggests no assessment has been done.
