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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 21 Apr 2005

Vol. 601 No. 1

Adjournment Debate.

Public Transport.

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for allowing me to raise the matter of the DASH project, which relates to the mobility access works being carried out at DART stations throughout Dublin. Initially, the contractors working for Iarnród Éireann promised that the work on the south side of Dublin would be carried out in one tranche within a nine to ten-month period. We were told that following a long public consultation period. As a public representative I co-operated with that consultation as I understood the important nature of the works. However, it emerged soon afterwards that a second tranche would be required.

Needles to say, people living on the south side of the city were badly inconvenienced but nobody complained much because they understood that a great public amenity was being provided. They understood the advantage for public transport and the inconvenience was borne well by everybody. When it was announced that a second tranche was required, we naturally wanted to know why. It has since emerged that the reason for the closures, which are to take place at weekends on the south side of the city in June, July and August, is the failure by some group of people in Iarnród Éireann to recognise the need for planning permission with regard to building works on bridges associated with southside DART stations. We are being asked to accept that the cost of this public failure is to be met from the pockets of private traders, people who will lose business. Blackrock, Dalkey, Sandycove and Dún Laoghaire will also lose, for the second time, the tourist trade which arrives into those villages throughout the summer.

We understand the value of the public amenity to be provided, which will ensure wheelchair access to the DART service. Unfortunately, nobody has been straight with the people affected. Nobody has been clear with regard to what is causing the delays. It now emerges that there is a possibility of a third closure, which is why I raise this matter in the Dáil. If there is no guarantee that this third closure will not take place and that the work will be completed in June, July and August, I support the view that the work should be postponed until perhaps February of next year. It is unacceptable to have this situation arising over and over again.

This situation arises because An Taisce has appealed the granting of planning permission by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and An Bord Pleanála will not have a decision until next September. It is only then that the work can be carried out. I have not had a clear answer from Iarnród Éireann as to whether it will be able to carry out the works during the 13 weeks referred to or whether it will have to resume the work again at Christmas. It is seriously asking us to tolerate closure of the DART during the Christmas period, the peak shopping season. This is devastating, for a third time, and is due to a public failure to acknowledge and recognise that there will be a planning permission requirement.

I ask the Minister to take control of what is going on. The Minister is not getting the facts from Iarnród Éireann. An Taisce is wrong-minded in the appeals it has made in this area. It should never have made those appeals because these matters have already been decided by An Bord Pleanála. All the issues I have raised, and the grounds of appeal made to An Bord Pleanála, were well ventilated before. The only reason that permission has been sought for a second time is that Iarnród Éireann recognised that the plans did not comply with part M of the building regulations.

An Taisce has no business in making its appeal. I have asked it to withdraw its appeal and to let the work be carried out. It will clearly not do that so I ask the Minister to take control of the issue. He is not getting the facts from the interested parties. I ask the Minister of State to support my view that the work should be put back until the new year unless a guarantee can be obtained that the work will be done in 13 weeks.

I thank Deputy Andrews for raising this issue. As he said, responsibility for the management of the DART upgrade rests with Iarnród Éireann and specific detail regarding implementation is a matter for the company. I listened intently to what the Deputy said and am concerned that he feels I may not be getting the facts. I would be happy to tease that matter out with him.

I have been monitoring some of the work for a number of reasons and take this opportunity to congratulate the project team on some of its strategies and on the manner in which it has gone about the work with as little disruption as possible to the services.

The DART upgrade project is the largest investment project undertaken by Iarnród Éireann since the DART service began in 1984. It involves significant infrastructural support and will deliver a 100% increase in the service. This process has been ongoing for some time. The work includes doubling the fleet of DART cars, replacing the overhead wiring, building new electricity sub-stations, lengthening all platforms and providing full access for mobility impaired customers at all stations.

By the end of the DART upgrade we will have invested in excess of €176 million on the project and a further €80 million on the purchase of DART cars. The project began in October 2003. To minimise the impact on customers and ensure that the core services were running Monday to Friday, Iarnród Éireann designed the work programme to ensure that interruptions to services were confined to weekends. That approach involves 24-hour working by the project team from the last DART service of Friday to the powering-up of the service on Monday mornings. This was considered to be the most effective way of undertaking such a large project.

From October 2003 to July 2004, excluding the weeks before Christmas, services were suspended at weekends between Pearse and Greystones stations. All platforms on the southside were lengthened, and all overhead lines renewed during these suspensions. Similar work on the northside has been taking place from August 2004 and will continue until the end of May 2005.

Because of planning and property issues encountered during the first period of scheduled works on the southside, Iarnród Éireann has informed the Department that it was not possible to complete all planned works and that it will be necessary to suspend weekend services between Pearse and Greystones stations to complete accessibility works at southside stations. The company proposes to suspend services from June 2005 for 13 weekends. This work is required to facilitate accessibility. I would be happy to tease out Deputy Andrews' suggestion with him and Iarnród Éireann in this regard.

Planning permission is required in respect of the work to be carried out on the southside stations and the Deputy is correct that some appeals have been lodged. Iarnród Éireann has worked hard to minimise any objections likely to be raised to its proposals for upgrading each station. Many of the stations are architecturally significant and all works carried out must have regard to both the building and the impact that the changes will have on people living in the vicinity.

The need to return to the southside was signalled publicly by the company in June 2004. The Department has asked the company to ensure that the work is carried out in the shortest possible time frame and with the minimum disruption to DART customers. We have also asked that additional bus services be provided along the route of the DART to cater for inconvenienced customers and that these additional bus services be published in a timetable for the relevant period.

Until the works at the southside stations are completed, mobility impaired people, including mums with pushchairs, will not be able to have full access to the DART network. I appreciate the frustration of people about these additional weekend closures. We must have patience and understanding as the work must be carried out as Deputy Andrews is aware and is happy to have done. I would be happy to arrange a meeting with Deputy Andrews, Department officials and Iarnród Éireann to have the facts clearly discussed and appropriate solutions agreed to.

Services for People with Disabilities.

I wish to raise the issue of the need for the Minister for Education and Science to reconsider her decision to disband the advisory committee for the deaf and hard of hearing. A letter dated 9 March was sent to the chairperson of the advisory committee which says:

given that the Committee in question has failed to submit a report by the two previous deadlines imposed by my predecessor, I consider it unlikely that the Committee will reach consensus in the near future. Therefore, I regret to advise you that, as indicated by my predecessor Noel Dempsey, I have decided that the Committee should now disband and I request that you forward a copy of all the material produced to date to my Department.

I raise this issue having met the Irish Deaf Society which has serious concerns at the disbandment of this committee. The society accepts the deadlines were not met, but it questions why the committee was not consulted before a letter was sent to the chairperson. The society says it only heard about a week ago that the committee was disbanded.

The position put by the Irish Deaf Society is that it suggested an interim report at an earlier stage, but this was turned down. It also wanted a majority-minority report because the truth is it was not possible to reach agreement on the advisory committee. The society has stressed strongly that the divisions of point of view on the committee did not relate to the deaf community itself, but rather to differences of opinion between the service providers and representatives of the deaf community.

The society has also suggested to me that representatives of the Minister's Department would not facilitate or did not want to have a majority report with a minority report attached and that it was as a result it was decided that the committee would no longer sit. The society has explained that a great deal of work had been done, it would have only taken approximately another six months to complete the work and that it had already set up a sub-committee to compile and edit the final report.

In effect the work was nearly done. I understand 200 submissions were made to the committee and a great deal of work was done over a three-year period. I urge the Minister reconsider this decision, particularly in light of the concern that it appears this tranche of work will be addressed through the National Council for Special Education. I submit that committee will have to start all over again to become acquainted with the issues. It also has much other work to do because it is an new body set up under the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act.

I make this appeal on behalf of the Irish Deaf Society and urge that this issue be reconsidered. The society also made the point that representation on the committee was heavily balanced in favour of service providers as opposed to the deaf community. I know this was changed along the way and that four representatives of the schools were put on it. At the same time, the society felt there was a genuine disagreement that could not be reconciled and that it would be logical in that situation to allow for a majority report with a minority report attached.

There are also concerns that the former Minister, Deputy Noel Dempsey, had a view that the differences of agreement were within the deaf community but the society argues strongly that this is not the case. It gave me reports from various Dáil debates on the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Bill that seem to indicate the former Minister's belief. He said:

Unfortunately, the problem has arisen that the attitudes being adopted on both sides of the argument within the deaf community appear to be almost mutually exclusive. . . .

Unfortunately, that committee has twice failed to meet deadlines I set for it to produce its report because both sides of the argument want to totally exclude the other's point of view. The difficulty is that a variety of voices has been raised to represent the deaf community.

However, some people within the community say that is not the case. I urge the Minister to reconsider this decision urgently in the circumstances.

The advisory committee on the education of the deaf and hard of hearing was established in December 2001 by the then Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Woods, with the following terms of reference: to review the adequacy of the current range of educational support services available to students who are deaf or hard of hearing, to identify and prioritise areas of service provision which require development or adjustment and to bring forward proposals considered appropriate to ensure the development and delivery of an appropriate, effective and efficient education support service for students who are deaf or hard of hearing.

The committee met 38 times in plenary session and a number of sub-committee meetings also took place. Submissions were invited from the public and three regional listening meetings were held in Dublin, Cork and Galway. Early in the committee's deliberations, it became apparent that there were entrenched, divergent views on approaches to the teaching of the deaf and hard of hearing and there was little willingness to reach consensus. In a number of cases, decisions arrived at sub-committee stage were challenged at plenary level by members who were involved in the decisions of the sub-committee.

While various chapters of the committee's report were drafted, including those on early intervention, primary education, post-primary education, visiting teacher service and communication issues, no consensus was reached on any of these due to the divergent views of members of the committee. Given that two deadlines had not been met, the Minister for Education and Science's predecessor, Deputy Noel Dempsey, met the committee in June 2004 to progress matters. At the meeting, he stressed that its report should be completed by October 2004.

The Deputy stated that the committee was taken by surprise by the decision to disband but it was well signalled to its members in June that time was running out and they should conclude by October. It was not possible for the committee to meet the deadline or to progress the completion of its report by October 2004. In the circumstances and following consultation with officials and the chairperson of the committee, the new Minister, Deputy Hanafin, formed the view that there was no prospect of the advisory committee reaching an agreed position in the foreseeable future. Given this position she recently wrote to the chairperson of the committee and informed her of the Minister's decision to disband it.

However, in disbanding the committee, the Minister requested that all the material produced by it to date be sent to her Department, and that has been done. She intends to discuss the important issue of deaf education with the National Council for Special Education with a view to carrying out research initially and devising policy on issues relating to deaf and hard of hearing pupils. The Minister is disappointed that it was not possible for the committee to complete its work but the reality was that more than three years after its establishment, there was no prospect of it doing so. Rather than continue down the cul de sac that the committee's work had become, she has decided that a different approach is required, including involving the National Council for Special Education, which has a remit to advise the Department of Education and Science on policy matters.

I acknowledge the Deputy's comments on the battles that took place and the attempts of service providers to take over the issue, which I will relay to the Minister. However, the decision to disband the committee was not taken lightly. Progress was painfully slow and none of the chapters was signed off on because people had set views. I identify with the Deputy's comments about service providers. Professionals came in and had their own battles, thereby, taking away from the issue about which the deaf people were concerned. I do not hold out much hope.

Waste Disposal.

Gabhaim buíochas don Cheann Comhairle as an seans an cheist a ardú. Tá áthas orm go bhfuil an tAire Stáit anseo.

This issue arises following the largest meeting ever of the Association of Landscape Contractors of Ireland recently in Goatstown, Dublin. Contractors from a wide area were drawn together because they are faced with the serious problem of not having a site within reach to dispose of organic material such as grass cuttings, hedge clippings and so on. At the time it appeared the Esker Lane facility in Lucan, County Dublin, would close but it has been given a stay of execution, although it has a licence for only 5,000 tonnes of waste. It is in danger of being overrun.

In addition, since January the St. Anne's Park facility has not been available. It operated for 15 years but, due to the mismanagement of the facility and the failure to address problems such as odours, spores and traffic, the patience of residents in the area has run out. However, the issue of the disposal of green waste needs to be addressed. The St. Anne's facility recycled 25,000 tonnes of valuable material, which was returned to landscape contractors for use in their work. Following a meeting between the contractors and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government two months ago, the Government failed to take decisive action to facilitate and ensure the creation of green material reception facilities and transfer stations within the greater Dublin area, which could provide an outlet.

I have been asked by the association to raise the issue of waste licences. A licence is needed even where a two-wheel trailer is used to move material between two customers as that is considered to be a transfer of waste, even though it comprises useful material such as grass clippings, which is not waste. The issue needs to be addressed for practical reasons. Such material should be exempt under the regulations for waste carriage licences because positive ecological operations are restricted.

The association seeks an allowance for the storage of a maximum of 50 cubic metres of green material to encourage people to compost on site, which many of us are encouraged to do by local authorities. However, in doing so, if we do not have a waste licence, we are breaking the law, which is ridiculous given that we are doing our best to avoid sending waste to landfill, as are landscape contractors.

Will the Minister of State ensure the Government provides the necessary facilities, which are widely available in other countries? Galway is once again ahead of many other towns and cities in that one third of its municipal waste is used for composting. It is a misnomer to describe it as waste because it is useful material. My colleague, Councillor Niall Ó Brolcháin, in Galway has been to the fore in lobbying for the construction of that facility. I hope that example can be followed elsewhere, particularly as it is following throughout Connacht. Green material must be put in a skip, which must be paid for, and that is not all, since it also goes to landfill and creates methane, something on which we are trying to cut down, as well as leachate. It is also a needless waste of a valuable material. One hopes the Minister will see his way to according this matter the priority it deserves.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, is out of the country on official business, and I am afraid the answer is rather general and not related to the specific issues the Deputy raised.

Ensuring the provision of waste facilities in line with the relevant waste management plan is primarily a matter for the local authority in question, and the Minister has consistently emphasised the importance of the local authority taking responsibility in the area. The Department operates a capital grants scheme for recycling and recovery facilities, under which nine green waste facilities have been grant-aided, and more are under consideration. However, the scheme is not sufficient to assist in the provision of all the infrastructure desirable; nor does its existence dilute the obligation on local authorities to provide for such infrastructure.

The obligation on local authorities to provide for facilities is, however, regarding household waste rather than waste arising in the course of commercial activities. Recycling, recovery or disposal of commercially arising waste is specifically the responsibility of the producer, and the local authorities are not obliged to provide facilities to, or to accept material from, the producer. Consistently landfilling commercial green waste is not viable owing to our commitment to reduce the proportion of biodegradable waste going to landfill. Against that backdrop, it seems there is a very obvious commercial opportunity regarding collection, shredding or compaction and composting of such green waste.

I know there are particular problems in Dublin, as the Deputy has said, regarding the closure of St. Anne's Park, which, to my limited knowledge, might be partly owing to the fact that it started taking in too much commercial waste. There did not seem to be objections from residents when it catered more for——

It was coming from Westmeath.

That is the point I was making. It got too big, and it was not simply vans from landscape gardeners. It is not in my constituency, but I heard reports of 40-ft. trucks going in. It was the scale that people complained about.

We are talking about traders.

Green waste, including commercially arising green waste, continues to be accepted at Esker Lane in Lucan. Looking to the future, however, South Dublin County Council will prioritise domestic users and commits itself only to keeping the facility available to householders. In the short term, the council will apply to the EPA for a revised waste licence for the green centre in Esker Lane so that the intake of green waste might be increased. All the Dublin local authorities are working hard to identify potential alternative and supplemental locations for the collection and compaction of green waste prior to transport for recycling elsewhere. Householders will, however, continue to have priority at any locations identified.

I hear the Deputy's point. There is nothing in this about the issue of people requiring licences just to move around. I will relate that back to the Minister, but I believe I heard some mention of Dublin City Council having identified a site in Ballyfermot on which it is following through. That is not in the script.

Perhaps a meeting might be facilitated. They are prepared to finance a solution, but they need the Department's co-operation.

There is no facility for questions on the Adjournment.

As the Deputy said, the Minister met them a few months ago, and I will speak to him on his return next week or whenever I see him and tell him that the Deputy had raised those ongoing concerns.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this very important issue. I raised it on the Adjournment approximately six months ago, and I have done so consistently on the Order of Business and whenever I got the opportunity, privately and publicly, with the Minister.

This is one of the great scandals of recent years. I speak not of the illegal dumping itself, but of the inactivity since the waste was uncovered. It is now more than three years since many hundreds of thousands of tonnes were uncovered in County Wicklow. I have a very specific matter on the Adjournment. It is to do with the illegal waste that has been dumped on a site known as O'Reilly's, Whitestown, Stratford-on-Slaney and the Roadstone Lands at Blessington. In three years, not an ounce of waste has been removed. It is extremely difficult to have confidence in the statutory bodies when one sees what has happened in this case. There has been no activity and nothing moved out of the site. A new housing estate has been built no distance at all from one of the sites — about as far as I am from the Minister of State at present. If he, or any of his staff, takes a trip there, he will see 20 or 30 vents a few metres from new houses. It is an absolute disgrace. The Government's own guideline issued in 1994 prescribes a distance of 50 metres from any landfill owing to the danger of gas. No new house should be constructed within that distance. Those new houses are literally on top of that illegal dump.

I will not beat around the bush, since what I seek is quite simple. I want the Minister to use his powers, as he intimated he would last October, under section 60 of the Waste Management Act 1996 to issue a direction to the relevant authorities to deal with this matter once and for all. As a local public representative, I find it very hard at this stage to go out and try to explain what is happening, since no one has any confidence that anything will be done. I beg the Minister to do something about this. The power is there in that Waste Management Act 1996. I am sure that, when it was drawn up and the use of this section was envisaged, it was for something far less significant than the extremely serious problem that we have in this case.

I have no doubt that, in the coming years, many other illegal dumps will be uncovered. The activity or inactivity of the statutory bodies to date regarding these two sites will certainly not act as a disincentive to any illegal dumper.

I am sorry this matter has arisen on the wrong day. I am sure that the Deputy would rather have had the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, from his own constituency to answer him. However, I can read out to him the answer I have here.

Waste management enforcement action is a matter for the relevant local authority and the Office of Environmental Enforcement. The Waste Management Act 1996 empowers local authorities to require by notice specified measures to be taken regarding the holding, recovery or disposal of waste to prevent or limit environmental pollution. Under the Waste Management Act 1996, the Environmental Protection Agency has statutory responsibility for waste licensing and is independent in the discharge of its functions. It would therefore not be appropriate for me to comment on any of the specified cases mentioned. Having said that, I understand the Deputy's concerns that the enforcement proceeding should be progressed with a little more urgency. I am sure the Minister shares his concern.

On a more general level, the Minister is committed to issuing statutory guidance under section 60 of the Waste Management Act 1996, which the Deputy mentioned, to local authorities regarding the remediation of sites that have been the subject of unauthorised waste activities. The intention of that guidance is to give local authorities and the agency a clear focus on the protection of human health, the environment and the property of third parties in responding to illegal waste activities. The Minister intends to issue that guidance within the next few weeks. However, I stress that it will not deal with individual cases. Section 60 of the Waste Management Act 1996 precludes the Minister from exercising any power or control regarding the performance in particular circumstances of a function conferred on either the agency or a local authority.

Let me detail what is happening overall regarding illegal sites. Substantial powers exist under the Waste Management Act 1996 to enable both the local authorities and the agency to tackle illegal waste activity. They were further strengthened by the Protection of the Environment Act 2003. Local authorities are empowered to order measures to be taken regarding the disposal of waste, including the remediation of any effects arising from illegal activities. They may also directly take appropriate action to remedy or counteract such activities and to recover their costs through the courts. Local authorities also enjoy substantial powers to halt vehicles, inspect premises and examine records found. The burden of proof in certain enforcement activities has been changed, in light of the experience of illegal dumping, to require that defendants must demonstrate that their activities do not cause environmental pollution. The courts can assume in certain cases that a landowner consented to the illegal activity unless the contrary can be shown.

It should be noted that the maximum penalties attaching to illegal waste activities — €15 million and-or a ten-year sentence — are substantial. Over €7 million has been allocated from the environment fund to assist local authorities to act on such powers. The money is being used to support an increased emphasis on the overall environmental enforcement effort, with particular emphasis on combating dumping and other unauthorised waste activities. Wicklow County Council has received a grant of €360,000 to enable it to employ seven additional waste enforcement workers.

The Government has demonstrated the seriousness with which it views the incidence of illegal dumping. The Garda was asked to assist in the investigation of such activity in County Wicklow. A team from the national bureau of criminal investigation is involved in ongoing inquiries into such matters. On the civil side, Wicklow County Council is continuing to take the action it deems appropriate. Formal legal proceedings are being prepared in several instances. I am sure the House will acknowledge that the measures being undertaken will greatly help local authorities in tackling the problem of illegal waste activity. They are a testament to the priority the Government attaches to this matter.

During a debate on housing earlier this week, Deputy Timmins referred to a housing estate in County Wicklow.

I spoke about the Woodleigh estate in Blessington.

I will ask some questions about the matter in my capacity as Minister of State with responsibility for housing. I regret the Minister was absent when the Deputy raised the issue.

The Dáil adjourned at 5.20 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 26 April 2005.
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