Plans for Moatview show a sensory garden, sports facilities, and a skate park

“I can’t believe it’s actually gone,” says Annette Flanagan, on Tuesday morning. Beneath her feet is soft brown mud, and it’s a welcome sight, she says.

Until this summer, the council land where she is standing – at the end of Moatview Court and Belcamp Gardens – was a massive illegal dump and landfill, huge mounds that reached up two or three storeys.

Now, with the dump finally being cleared, comes the question of what should replace it.

In response to a query about this from local independent Councillor John Lyons, a council official said an answer was close.

“The Area Office and representatives from the Parks Section have met with the residents of Moatview Court and Belcamp Gardens on two occasions,” he said.

They’d discussed proposals and listened to feedback from residents, said the written response to Lyons, published in September.

“There is a further meeting this week to agree the final plan with the residents prior to developing detailed plans and going out to tender,” the response said.

Residents in the neighbourhood have worked with architects over several meetings this summer to develop what they want the site to look like eventually, said Flanagan.

Everybody seems happy with the result, says Flanagan. “Assuming they do what they say they’re going to do.”

In May, Flanagan had said that she wanted to see a sensory garden and a playground for the local kids. The plans have those and much more.

Drawings for the second iteration of plans – which some residents say they hope is final – show a five-a-side multi-use games area (MUGA), a half basketball court, a table tennis area, running and walking tracks, a “hang out area”, exercise equipment, and a brand-new skate park.

Flanagan says it's about time that kids in the area will have decent modern amenities close to home.

There has been open drug-dealing around the field, she says, and she hopes bringing vibrancy back to the area will help address that problem too.

One thing stands in the way still though, she says: funding.

Flanagan says that while the plans are there, and people in the estate are excited for them, the council has yet to sign off on paying for it.

Dublin City Council didn’t respond when asked on Tuesday to confirm if these were indeed the final version of the plans.

How long

The illegal dump dates back decades.

“This is not what we call illegal dumping. This is highly commercial, organised, industrial and garden waste that has been going on for a number of years,” then Sinn Féin Councillor Larry O’Toole said in February 2019.

After, the council did some work to remove some of the waste. It spent €230,000, but the dump kept growing.

A Breffni crew was on site on Tuesday. They have been there since May, said Flanagan, finally clearing it once and for all. They’ll be there for a few months yet, the foreman said.

“It’s taken 15 years to clear that dump,” says Gerry Jervis, who lives nearby.

Jervis had been worried that the waste was the reason so many people in the area had been diagnosed with cancers.

In 2020, an engineers report found evidence of asbestos-containing materials on top of the landfill in Priorswood. But the report said that the probability that materials from the dump and landfill were causing health problems for people was quite low.

Jervis remains unconvinced, he said by phone on Thursday.

Still, he is thrilled to finally see action on the site, and for the mound to be gone, he said. He welcomes the new plans.

Flanagan is confident it will come together, she says, as Derek Farrell, Dublin City Council’s local area manager for Donaghmede, has been in regular contact and supportive.

Said Jervis: “Whatever they’re going to do with it, they just can’t leave us waiting for years.”

If Taoiseach Micheál Martin, or any senior politician ever faced the prospect of bringing up children around such an environment, the dump would never have existed, he said.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.