Owner of ‘illegal scrapyard’ in Carlow ‘making life miserable’ for neighbours

The owner of an “illegal scrapyard” in County Carlow is “making life miserable” for their neighbours, a council meeting has heard.

The issue was raised by Fianna Fáil councillor Daniel Pender at the March plenary meeting of Carlow County Council.

Cllr Pender said: “I want to raise three issues, the first being an illegal scrapyard in Raheendoran which I brought up directly with the executive and I know they are trying their best.

“It simply perplexes me that the law has been written so rigidly that someone is able to repeatedly offend and continue to just make life miserable for their neighbours in that area.”

He went on to outline how the person in question is using the current legislation to bypass the council’s attempted enforcement.

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“They continue to park what are clearly scrap cars that are going to be used there, day after day and when the council go out, they have to put a sticker onto the car and they are given seven days to remove it.

“Now this person continues to go out, bring the car into their yard and bring another car out there. They know the law and they know how far the council can go.”

Cllr Pender continued by inquiring whether there was anything else the council could do to address the issue.

“Is there anything that we can do about this to push it on because they’ve consistently offended.

“They’ve offended in other areas prior to moving there and it is something that does need to change.

“The residents there have had it up to here at this point and they want something to change.”

In response, Coilín O'Reilly, Chief Executive of Carlow County Council, explained the current legislation which is causing difficulties for the council.

Mr O’Reilly said: “Every day is a school day and recently as part of this, I learned that you can have nine cars in your front garden and be scrapping them and that’s not against the law.

“Somewhere in legislation you can have up to nine cars in your front garden and be working on them, which is very odd.

“So what’s happening in that case is that the cars are out on the road, we put a notice on them, they’re moved back into the garden which means they’re then compliant and then they’re moved back onto the road.”

He continued by highlighting his frustration at the current situation in Raheendoran.

“It’s one of these things that we come up against in our job where the regulations and legislation may not be the most efficient way of doing things and when the cars are moved inside, it gives a reset.

“So I appreciate the problems, I appreciate the difficulties that it causes but for some reason, somebody decided that you could have nine cars in your front garden.”

Mr O’Reilly concluded by saying he didn’t understand why the regulations are the way they are.