Donegal Gardaí have been attempting to arrest the man behind an illegal dump near Letterkenny.

An order was made for the arrest of the illegal dump operator, Jim Ferry, after a court appearance last week.



Mr Ferry appeared in court for a hearing, after Donegal County Council’s application for him to be jailed because of the dump, as reported by the Irish Times. The illegal site , operated by Ferrys Refuse Collection Limited and Ferrys Refuse recycling Limited, is located in Rossbracken just outside Letterkenny.



Mr. Justice Max Barrett made the order for Mr Ferry’s arrest after the court appearance and the order was sent to the Garda headquarters in Dublin shortly after. Mr. Ferry had left the building before the order was written and announced, with Gardaí now frantically searching for Mr. Ferris, who is presumed to have returned to the Letterkenny area. Mr. Ferris gives two separate addresses, one at the illegal site in Rossbracken, the other as Slive Sneacht Road.



Mr,. Ferry had appeared in the High court over the issue back in April and was ordered to clean up the site. But after Mr. Ferry was given one final chance again in July, a subsequent investigation found that the site was in a worse state than ever. A County Council waste regulation officer, Matthew Byrne, visited the site and found Mr. Ferris had not complied with the judge’s order.



The site was first visited by officers back in November 2016, where they discovered the huge illegal dumping ground. Mr. Ferry is a licensed collector of household and other refuse in Donegal, though he had over 36 thousand tonnes of waste on site. Upon further investigation officers found the huge quantities of waste, as most of it was hidden. It is estimated that the illegal waste amounted to over €3.36 million in customer fees, just for that one site alone.



The search is now on in county Donegal to try and arrest the county’s king of illegal dumping.