District Court decision in favour of former rugby international's waste company overturned

Ray Managh

A District Court decision in favour of AWD Waste Solutions, the company of Irish and Lions rugby star Shane Byrne and his co-director father William, has been overturned by the Circuit Civil Court.

The company had successfully appealed in the District Court against the decision of Offaly County Council, acting in its role as a national waste collection permit office, refusing it a waste collection permit.

The council in June 2021 had refused AWD’s application for a permit on grounds it was not a fit and proper entity, quoting earlier convictions against the Byrnes as directors of AWD for offences contrary of the Waste Management Act.

The Byrnes’ legal argument in its successful District Court appeal against the council’s refusal of a permit was that the council should have disregarded the information about their previous convictions on the basis that they were ‘spent.’

Judge Simon McAleese, sitting in the Midland Circuit, said the reason given for the refusal had stated “Shane Byrne and William Byrne, directors of AWD Solutions trading as AWD Waste Solutions had not met the ‘fit and proper’ criteria, having been convicted at Arklow District Court of offences contrary to the Waste Management Act at Killacloran, Aughrim in February 2012.”

He said AWD had exercised its statutory right to appeal the permit refusal to the District Court at the time and had contended the convictions should have been disregarded within the meaning of the Criminal Justice (Spent Convictions and Certain Disclosures) Act when assessing the company’s application for a permit.

Judge McAleese, in overturning AWD’s District Court success, said there was nothing within the Waste Management Act that provided a ‘disregard’ mechanism for spent convictions in such circumstances.