A JUDGE yesterday criticised a company director for his unacceptable and truculent attitude to a jury verdict that found the man’s company guilty of breaching its environmental licence.
At Ennis Circuit Court, Seán Ó Donnabháin ordered that Chemifloc Ltd pay €10,000 through a fine and costs arising from breaching its pollution licence over the emission of a large red-orange plume from the plant two years ago.
At the end of a four-day trial, a majority 10 to two verdict found that Shannon-based Chemifloc guilty of failing to comply with its Integrated Pollution Control Licence licence on May 24th, 2007, by breaching permitted levels of nitrogen dioxide in the atmosphere.
In response to the verdict, director of the Irish-owned company, Hilary Lawless, told the court that it was the first time that visual evidence had been placed above analytical evidence in a case.
In sentencing yesterday, Judge Ó Donnabháin said that Mr Lawless’s attitude to the jury’s verdict was “truculent and unacceptable”.
He said that there was “overwhelming” evidence that the company had breached its licence.
During the case, the jury heard from Garda Pat Keating, who said that he feared there might be an explosion or poisoning from the incident, as he was preparing for the worst.
Judge Ó Donnabháin said the incident looked very dramatic on the photographs and video submitted by members of the public in evidence, but it was not a case of pollution.
Counsel for the company, Pat Whyms, said the incident was not a case of gross negligence or carelessness, but was an accident.
Mr Whyms said the company attended to the incident immediately and had put in place measures to ensure that it would not happen again.
In the case, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which investigated the incident, was seeking costs of €59,463.
The EPA explained that it broke down to charging a daily rate of €1,230 for its inspector to investigate the incident.
Mr Whyms described the charges as “outrageous”.
Judge Ó Donnabháin described the weekly EPA rate of €6,150 as “mad and this should be subjected to ‘An Bord Snip Nua’ as soon as possible”.
The judge said he was satisfied that Chemifloc had an ability to pay after hearing that the company’s pre-tax profits last year were €1.7 million on a turnover of €11.9 million, with retained profits standing at €5 million.
He said he wouldn’t award the EPA costs of €59,463 as “the accounting nonsense put forward in arriving at that amount is quite bizarre”.
Judge Ó Donnabháin said there had been a significant amount of co-operation by the company with the EPA and imposed a fine of €5,000 and costs of €5,000.
