LIMERICK solicitor Michelle Hayes has announced her Independent candidacy in Cappamore-Kilmallock for this June’s local elections.
Ms Hayes says she has a track record of advocating for Limerick in complex legal and environmental cases on a pro-bono basis to both help communities and individuals.
A practising solicitor in her firm in Limerick City, Hayes Solicitors, and president of Environmental Trust Ireland, she hails from the parish of Murroe and Boher.
A first time candidate, Ms Hayes says she has been fighting against the Irish Cement incinerator and the burning of tyres and other hazardous substances at Irish Cement in Mungret in a mammoth David v Goliath case.
“I am committed to protecting the people of Limerick City and County,” she told the Limerick Post.
“I have brought court cases in my own name in the public interest because the risk to human health and the environment are too serious. I am the only candidate in the local elections or any election who has continued this fight on behalf of the people of Limerick to prevent the incinerator.”
“I have challenged the granting of an incinerator licence at great personal risk to the Court of Appeal and a decision is awaited shortly. It is very difficult for an individual to take a case of this magnitude against such powerful adversaries, in this situation, multi-national conglomerate Irish Cement, the EPA, the State, and ironically Green Party Minister for the Environment, Eamon Ryan, who supports the incinerator.”
Ms Hayes says she has also been communicating with Uisce Éireann in relation to unsafe drinking water through County Limerick over the last year, seeking individual notification and free bottled water for affected individuals.
She made submissions to Uisce Éireann over three years ago against the proposed removal of 330million litres of water a day from the River Shannon for Dublin.
