November 1st, 2006

Campaigners in Ireland are battling to stop the creation of an asbestos storage facility by going to the High Court over the government’s decision to grant permission for the facility to go ahead. The residents have been expressing their concerns over the facility, and the case was due to be heard earlier this week.

Judicial review proceedings were issued against the government, which has been accused of failure to follow European Directives relating to the protection of the environment in its decision to grant permission for the asbestos storage facility to be created in Crumlin.

Permission was granted for the facility to go ahead, even though over one and a half thousand letters of objection were submitted by campaigners and concerned residents. Legal officials for the campaigners stated that the case represented "fundamental challenge to the lack of strategic thinking on waste issues by the Department of the Environment".

The campaigners are known collectively as Crumlin Against Asbestos, and the chairman stated: "It has been a long road to get to this point, but we are obviously delighted to have our day in court to put across our case. It has been over a year since we were given leave to seek a judicial review and we are confident that we have a powerful case to put before the judge. We have always said that the people of Crumlin have genuine concerns over the decision to grant planning permission for the asbestos facility in our village and we are satisfied that those concerns will now be given the attention they deserve."