Suggested rules wouldn’t be anything new for Gormleys

A local scrap metal merchant said he would welcome new laws requiring his industry to register the details of customers, in a bid to clamp down on thieves and “cowboy” dealers.

Felix Gormley gave assurances that his staff already record details of everyone selling metal, and if anyone approached with suspicious items, they would be shown the gate.

The Crossdoney based businessman made his comments after An Garda Síochána appealed for witnesses to 66 incidents of cable theft nationwide in the past six months. Gardaí noted the cables are likely being targeted for their copper content and say “the vast majority” of the thefts occurred in Cavan, Monaghan, Louth and Meath.President of ICMSA Pat McCormack said news of this latest spate of thefts was “absolutely infuriating”. Wearing his farmer representative hat, he contrasted the onerous regulations the government enforce on farmers against those expected of the scrap metal industry.Mr McCormack contended: “The authorities are now reduced to asking scrap dealers to inform the Gardaí if they are offered for sale suspicious amounts of, for instance, copper.”What he described as the “State’s inability” to keep a register of who was buying and selling stolen metals was contrasted with their “hyper-efficiency” in monitoring the volumes of fertiliser a farmer can buy.Mr McCormack said that it was “very interesting but unfortunately not very surprising” that the State can “monitor and enforce the sale and use of sprays and fertiliser by demanding that all farmers keep individual registers, but is unable – or perhaps more accurate, it is unwilling – to actually regulate the purchase and onwards sale of metals stolen from public and private utilities in a way that leaves numerous rural communities without acceptable communications for days or longer.”

Felix Gormley heard Pat McCormack’s views on radio and surmised, “that man must have been a long journey from a scrapyard”.

“We never get any of that stuff in here,” Felix insisted. “There’s reasons why they would never come here – for the first reason you would be asked, in a simple way ‘Is that stuff hot?’“And if they were asked that, they’d be out the gate like a scalded cat. Because I might ask, or the three men on the weigh bridge might ask – where did you get it? And if you ask that at all then they’re gone.”

Felix’s son-in-law Hugh Monaghan was manning the weighbridge when theCeltattended. Beside it, a pair of cranes are adding crushed cars to the gradually growing steel drumlins. It’s indicative of the majority of Felix’s work.“We took in 5,000 cars last year,” Felix says, explaining the engines are melted for aluminium, the batteries are recycled, while the wiring is broken down to its component parts onsite.

Hugh brings us to a huge tangle of car wiring in one shed waiting to be put through a heavy duty machine called a granulator. Earplugs are handed out before entering the granulator room as it noisily grinds the wire down and separates it into its component parts according to weight.

Thin car wiring and the larger domestic wiring, which would normally be brought in by electricians, can be handled by the granulator. Hugh explains that to get through the much thicker copper wire for telephone cables, a different much more powerful machine would be required.

“Phone cable is something we don’t deal in,” says Hugh. “Very very seldom have I ever seen anything more than a couple of metres of it in any consignment.”

“Around here I don’t think anybody would be buying that type of stuff,” he said, adding his opinion it would be transported out of the jurisdiction for processing.

“If you came in here to me and you had cable,” says Hugh out in the yard, “I’d have to get your ID before I’ll take anything of you. That’s all traceable. If An Garda Síochána came in here looking for cable or whatever, we could show them exactly what we took in, and ID of the people who brought them in - that wouldn’t be a problem.”

Those details remain on their system for seven years, and echoing Hugh’s point, Felix says that often they know their customers well, but if they didn’t, they would ask for ID before entering them into the system.

Felix also stressed the many regulations with which the industry already complies, noting dealers must have a permit, a licence, and a Trans-Frontier Shipment (TFS) document. In addition they are audited by both Cavan County Council and by Repak ELT.Felix explains: “Every item that comes in here has to be put down under its European code and recorded, and we have to do a return every year for all of the stuff that came into the yard and every item that left the yard including weight.”

The ICMSA’s Pat McCormack’s irritation at the thefts was prompted due to a “similar epidemic of metal theft” dating back over a decade ago, when metal prices were similarly lucrative. At that time his association repeatedly called for a law or regulation forbidding scrap dealers paying in cash for such metals without the sellers confirming their identity and addresses by official documentation.Mr McCormack said that, despite assurances and a high-profile public debate on the matter, nothing meaningful had been done and “here we are again, more than a decade later with probably the same thieves selling the same type of stolen materials to probably the same buyers”.

Asked how they would feel about the ICMSA’s suggested regulations, both Felix and Hugh said it wouldn’t be a problem as they already do that of their own volition.

“I’d welcome it,” says Felix, saying it would force rogue traders to be more responsible: “It’d make the cowboys come our way.“I’ve told the men here to turn them away if everything isn’t legit. If it’s not legit, you may be telling your story travelling.”