THOSE brothers John and Tom Standish cannot keep out of trouble with their sawmills in Roscrea, Co Offaly, as fans of Goldhawk will recall, and the brothers ended up in the High Court a number of times. This time the brothers have come a cropper in Tullamore Circuit Court, thanks to an unauthorised quarry the boys were running. The pair started quarrying gravel in the late 1990s but were abruptly stopped by an enforcement order Offaly County Council obtained against them in 2002. With Martin Bennet as the quarry operator, the brothers began quarrying again in late 2005. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t long before they ended up in court with local man Michael Lynch. As a result, Judge Anthony Kennedy has ordered the brothers to stop their quarrying. It will be recalled (see The Phoenix 25/3/2005) that this is not the first time the brothers have been hauled before a judge, having annoyed some influential parties around Offaly, including none other than the Countess of Rosse, who led a legal action in 2005 over the Standish sawmills. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also had battles with the brothers over their non-compliance with a pollution control licence, for example, while their company – T&J Standish Ltd – was convicted in 2001 of breaching the Water Pollution Act. Happily, all this litigation has not stopped TJS from
turning a handy profit. The company, where Tom and John Standish each own 50%, made over €210,000 during the year to the end of February 2006, bringing accumulated profits here to over €1m.
© The Phoenix
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