The High Court has allowed litigation over the 2008 dioxin contamination of Irish pig feed to proceed, rejecting an attempt to remove Gerard Tierney from the case and refusing applications for security for costs against Millstream Recycling Limited.
Millstream manufactured the feed linked to the contamination that became public in December 2008. Thousands of pigs were slaughtered and the reputation of Irish pork was severely damaged. Millstream alleges that contaminants entered its feed through oil supplied by Gerard Tierney and Newtown Lodge Limited. The defendants dispute liability, while Newtown Lodge has joined O'Neill's Fuels Limited as a third party.
Mr Justice Charleton stressed that no trial had yet taken place and made no findings about responsibility for the contamination.
Tierney argued that any business dealings were carried out through Newtown Lodge and that the claims against him personally should be dismissed. The judge refused. He held that there were genuine factual issues requiring trial, including whether Tierney personally assumed responsibility when advising Millstream about suitable fuel, the nature of the contractual relationship and whether there was any basis for piercing Newtown Lodge's corporate veil.
The court also refused security-for-costs applications by both defendants. Millstream was financially distressed, but the judge held that it had made out a sufficiently strong preliminary case that its inability to meet costs resulted from the very wrongdoing alleged against the defendants. He separately considered the factual origins of a food contamination crisis affecting a major Irish industry to be of exceptional public importance and said the litigation should proceed.
Millstream also sought Garda material from the criminal investigation. The court refused discovery of witness or informer material and evidence obtained from another jurisdiction under criminal mutual-assistance procedures. However, it ordered disclosure of neutral forensic results concerning the composition of oil, pig feed and pig-meat samples from relevant locations, finding that such material would not hinder the criminal investigation.