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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 19 Nov 2002

Vol. 557 No. 4

Private Members' Business. - Waste Management (Amendment) Bill, 2002: Second Stage.

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Ba mhaith liom mo chuid ama a roinnt leis na Teachtaí Boyle, Connolly, Joe Higgins agus Ferris.

Seo an chéad deis ag an gComhaontas Glas reachtaíocht a thabhairt os comhair na Dála seo. Tá ceist os ár gcomhair atá an-thábhachtach i saol agus i dtodhchaí an náisiúin. Is é an reachtaíocht sin an Bille um Bainistiú Dramhaíola (Leasú), 2002.

Statements will be made in this debate which will stand the test of time or will be found to be flawed to the point of being dangerous. The Green Party seeks to remedy a number of the flaws in the Waste Management Act, 1996, and the Waste Management (Amendment) Act, 2001. This Bill seeks to enshrine in law a ban on incineration, to require targets to be set to implement waste minimisation, to ensure local councillors are responsible as well as accountable for waste policy for their administrative areas and to ensure that for the first time, the definition of a zero waste strategy is enshrined in law.

We are at a cross-roads in regard to incineration. I spoke to people from different countries on the telephone about this issue. It is clear people from countries with incineration believe, in many cases, there is another way. Unlike those countries, we have the benefit of hindsight. Technology has moved on. With alkaline hydrolysis, an approved technology in the United States and, we expect, soon to be approved in the European Union, incineration is not required for BSE infected material. Chemclaving and autoclaving is available in regard to medical and hazardous waste. There are many ways to minimise waste which were not available previously when people had to face the issue of waste management.

For those reasons, I seek a frank debate in the House and, based on the technology we now have, to put forward a policy which will ensure Ireland remains incineration free. That will be of immense benefit not only to the health and food safety record of this country but will be an important benefit in marketing our food internationally, particularly our meat and dairy produce.

I implore the Minister to take this legislation on board. It may not be the Government's final word on the matter, which we are prepared to accept. However, the Minister should at least accept the spirit in which it is offered, that is, as a timely amendment to the Waste Management (Amendment) Act which will ensure incineration does not become a spectre on the Irish environment and that the future of this country lies in following an incineration free and zero waste strategy.

The Government must show leadership as well as ensure democracy is allowed to be part of the Irish political scene. Under the 1996 Act regional plans were permitted in lieu of local plans in administrative areas and I ask that that be reviewed. This Bill provides a requirement that each administrative area have its own waste management plan. That does not preclude a regional plan being the final part of a waste management strategy but it should not be in lieu of a local administrative area plan. This is analogous to the local development plan which, naturally, follows the administrative boundaries. The same should be true of the waste plan initially so that local accountability is maintained and democracy is rooted in the administrative area of the local council.

A zero waste strategy will be the most enlightened path a country can take when dealing with waste. It is as enlightened as looking for zero road tragedies and road accidents. The Minister will know more than most how difficult it is to attain that but, nonetheless, it does not stop him setting targets seeking zero road deaths. I commend the target in regard to road deaths but there should be similar political will to ensure zero waste in time. A strategy should be put in place with targets set for waste minimisation. Once those targets are reached, the targets may be pushed forward towards zero waste. That is perfectly feasible and is a practice being followed. I acknowledge nobody has reached it but it is the way forward.

In New Zealand, Australia and Canada it is a strategy. The Minister should not confuse strategy with an end result. The strategy must be put in place so we keep moving forward rather than being satisfied with the fairly random percentage targets which are being set at present. They are a percentage of a quantity which is not defined. I ask the Minister to grasp the nettle, about which he keeps talking, but in a way which future generations will appreciate.

It is a privilege for myself and Deputy Sargent to introduce our party's first Bill to be debated and voted on in this Chamber. I ask the Minister and the Government to consider a practice slowly developing in this House of giving honest consideration to Bills presented by Members on this side, allowing such Bills to go to Committee Stage and, ultimately, to be enacted. It would be to our benefit as a Legislature if we were allowed that opportunity.

The Waste Management (Amendment) Bill is short. It seeks to correct flaws which have become apparent in the 1996 Act and, more particularly, in the amending legislation in 2001. I refer to my experience of the 2001 Act, in particular. That Act was introduced by the Government because of impatience with a number of local authorities which had not approved regional waste management plans. I was a member of one such authority, Cork City Council. One of the other authorities, Galway Corporation as it was then known, had approved a waste management plan but had not approved it to the satisfaction of those determining waste management policy in Ireland; it had approved a plan which did not include the incineration option. The amending legislation was drafted, passed and forced on this local authority to bring about a different solution. For those of us who believe in local democracy, it was an unfortunate turn of events. In Cork City Council, we were never given the opportunity of voting on the local waste management plan. We debated it in the chamber and put forward amendments. It was then put into suspension while the city management allowed for the new legislation to take effect and to abrogate the decision itself at the expense of the local decision makers. Again, for those of us who care about waste management, as well as local democracy, that was a very unfortunate turn of events.

The waste problem can be described as a waste crisis. The Minister and Government representatives have described it as such. How we define the problem and how we develop solutions to it depends on how imaginative we are in regard to the problem itself. The Green Party will be proposing solutions that deal with the problem at source. Unfortunately, the complication for the Government is that this problem needs to be dealt with in its end result. Ireland has the highest per capita amount of waste created in the world, outside of the United States, on which we are fast catching up. Why is so much waste created and why has no serious effort been put in place to reduce it? No serious efforts have even been put in place to reduce the rate of increase of the amount of waste. As a result we are the litterbug of Europe.

That is not true.

It is true. We are the litterbug of Europe. We produce more waste per capita than any other country in Europe and the Minister has to accept that fact.

The Deputy said that no strategy had been put in place.

We produce more waste per capita than any other country in Europe.

That is true.

That is a fact. Our recycling strategy is pathetic. It is minimal and ineffective. At a rate of 8% we are lagging at the bottom of the European league table. The Minister sought to make capital out of a recent announcement that he was giving additional moneys for recycling facilities. Any additional money is welcome but he was offering less money than the Government had already promised in the national development plan. This is the direction of Government policy in regard to identifying waste as a problem and in trying to bring about a solution.

The Government has chosen, instead, to go down what seems an easy disposal option. I represent the constituency of Cork South Central where it has been proposed to install a national toxic waste incinerator. The Government seems to believe that because the area is a sacrifice area of sorts with its heavy concentration of industry, which already takes care of a large amount of waste products, it should be the receptacle of all other waste created elsewhere in the country. This is the Government's kind of whole hog approach to waste management which totally ignores the feeling of local communities, such as those in Ringaskiddy. Ringaskiddy is the most obvious case because what is being proposed there will be of a larger scale and will have a more damaging effect than elsewhere in the country, but the same is true for County Meath and County Louth and Ringsend. Indeed, anywhere there has been a proposed incinerator it is an effort by authorities to avoid dealing with the problem at source which would ensure that we do not have such an amount of waste to be disposed of in the ways that are being suggested.

The Bill does not just propose that we do not go down the incineration road, but also addresses the need to re-introduce a greater degree of democracy in our local government systems. It does so in terms of making the decisions and taking responsibility for decisions in regard to waste, but it also changes the emphasis. The Government has never adopted a three Rs approach to waste prevention. There has never been any serious attempts to reduce the amounts of waste being created. No infrastructure for the re-use of waste has been put in place. As I have already mentioned, we are at the bottom of every European league table in regard to the recycling of waste.

We should not be approaching the debate by saying that things are happening to some extent and can be better in the future. We have been having this debate since Ireland promoted a green Presidency of the European Union in 1990. In the 12 years since then, all the statistics in regard to waste creation, in terms of reducing and recycling waste, have worsened. They have worsened most under the current Government, yet no one seems to be prepared to take responsibility for that.

I do, have no doubt about it, but I am being hampered at every hands turn by Deputy Boyle and his ilk.

Deputy Boyle has concluded his seven and a half minutes.

I was trying to respond to the Minister. If the Minister is prepared to take responsibility, I urge him to take it in the area of the waste that is being created. If he can show us strategies that lead to the production of less waste than is currently created then there will not be any need for an incinerator. If he can put those policies in place, he will have our support. We can only have a waste management strategy that takes into account the fact that this is a small country that should not have to implement policies that force us to produce more waste to justify an incineration infrastructure that cannot be substantiated on economic grounds.

I support and welcome the Bill. The principles it lays out should be fundamental to any waste strategy. We have had a pathetic failure in respect of effective waste management policy and implementation from successive Governments.

Virtually the only policy approach we have had for many years is the bankrupt one of levying a charge for waste disposal. In the case of householders that means an extra tax at local level. Now that the Government has made such a mess of the public finances it will be squeezing the local authorities to an even greater degree in terms of shortfalls in their financing, resulting in a demand for refuse charges to be further increased. Waste collection in County Sligo has been privatised resulting in a rate of €10 per bag in one housing estate. That is an appalling dereliction of responsibility by successive Governments.

It is the polluter pays principle.

It is absolutely ludicrous to advance this particular slogan.

It is not a slogan.

It is a totally trite slogan, as if the ordinary householder was the equivalent of a chemical factory or somebody producing toxic emissions. That is not the case. The ordinary householder is a waste receiver not a waste creator.

Will the Deputy come off it, referring to "a waste receiver"?

This Government and the previous one bear a heavy responsibility for this approach. In terms of household waste, the EPA's database report of 1998 found that household waste accounted for only 1.5% of waste that was going to landfill. It was a minuscule amount in comparison with agricultural and industrial sources as well as construction and demolition waste which was the vast majority of it. Householders are not the problem. Successive Governments have failed to deal with the issue of a reduction of packaging, which creates a significant amount of what householders put out as rub bish. They have no option but to take it when they buy goods in a shop. The packaging of goods is quite incredible. Ordinary household products on sale in supermarkets such as food, mechanical goods or basic appliances have one, two or three layers of wrapping. It is ludicrous that a single lamb chop or a doughnut with a hole in the middle should be wrapped on a foam plate with clear plastic.

I agree with the Deputy.

That is waste. I avoid those products as a matter of policy when I shop.

They are bad for the Deputy.

Such packaging should be banned. As a demonstration for my own county council, I did €20 worth of shopping and brought the packaging waste into a meeting. It was incredible, yet the Government refuses to take on vested interests who want to sell their products while cutting the throats of their competitors. Householders are, therefore, waste receivers, not polluters. That principle is ludicrous and will prevent the development of a proper policy.

The "polluter pays" principle is almost another tax and it was introduced in that context in 1983 when there was a major betrayal of PAYE workers through the introduction of water and household waste charges. The Government should take on the vested interests. Happily, we saw off water charges when they were proposed even though a similar propaganda ploy was adopted at the time whereby the charge was to be implemented as an incentive to conserve water. There are effective mechanisms for conserving water involving simple changes to the building and design regulations governing house building that could save billions of gallons of water in the capital city annually. However, instead of adopting such a conservation approach, people are made to pay to resolve the problem—

Water is an expensive commodity, similar to electricity or mobile telephones.

Deputy Higgins, without interruption.

Water is an expensive commodity. PAYE workers fund the bulk of services through direct and indirect taxation and there is open revolt as they have been lumbered with a parallel tier of local taxation which the Department of Finance has wanted to implement for a long time.

It has not.

If over the past five years while giving away billions of euro to large corporations and big business—

It was given to the very workers about whom the Deputy is talking.

Reform of PAYE was long overdue

We undertook the reform.

The Minister for Finance provided in his last budget for a €320 million reduction in corporation tax to companies which could not believe the profits they were raking in over the past years. He significantly reduced employers' PRSI and he wants to further reduce corporation tax.

The creation of 690,000 jobs sounds like a great deal of effort. It is better to have 1.7 million people employed.

Those jobs were there.

They were not.

I assure the Minister those jobs were not created by the Minister for Finance while he looked after the very rich last December. These funds should have been invested in a major waste management plan instead of lining the pockets of large corporations for repatriation overseas in addition to the €20,000 million they will send out of the country this year in profits made from the labour of Irish workers.

Incineration is wrong from a health perspective, despite the Government's protestations that the problem of toxic emissions has been eliminated. Nobody believes that. Incineration is counterproductive in terms of economics as more waste needs to be generated so that such plants are profitable for privateers who are muscling in on it and, therefore, it will not reduce waste.

Tá praiseach cheart déanta ag an Rialtas maidir le polasaí dramhaíola. Tacaím leis an mBille atá os ár gcomhair. Táim áthasach gur thug an Comhaontas Glas an Bille os ár gcomhair agus tabharfaidh mé tacaíocht dó.

We support the Bill but we should not be here to propose that a zero waste strategy should have been included in the original legislation. Such a strategy should have been at the heart of the Bill and the core objective of waste management. It was not and the truth is that incineration and the pampering of business interests who want to profit from bogus waste management schemes is at the heart of waste management legislation. Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats have over the past five and a half years shown that nothing will be allowed stand in the way of railroading incinerator projects into our communities.

Worse still, the previous Minister for Environment and Local Government used waste management as a means to undermine local democracy in Ireland and his amendment to the Bill removed power from local authorities, giving central Government an executive role in deciding local waste management strategies.

They would not take responsibility.

This was all the more damning considering that the then Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Dempsey, had promised root and branch reform of local democracy. He stated in May 1999 that he would "put local government back at the centre of local democracy and put councillors in a pivotal role in the new system". It was another false promise.

We welcome the sections in this legislation that go some way to redressing the negative aspects of Deputy Dempsey's amendments and return power for the making, reviewing and replacement of waste management plans to democratically elected councillors. However, more needs to be done, as Deputy Dempsey's successor has shown the same contempt for local democracy. Within weeks of taking up office Deputy Cullen, not content with proposals for sneaking stealth taxes into hundreds of thousands of 26 County households through new charges for refuse collection, pronounced there was too much democracy in the 26 Counties.

Surely it should be up to the councils who draft and negotiate waste management plans to decide what charges or levies there should be, if any.

They will do that.

Not so, according to the current Minister, who believes we are "over democratised" and who wants to bypass local government when it comes to debating and voting on decisions to grant planning permission for incinerators and other waste management projects. The Minister's fast track and one stop shop approach is driven by the desire to cut to the chase. He stated: "I am not interested in more great debates". The Government does not want a debate on waste management.

We want decisions because we live in the real world. We want to do something, not talk about it.

The Minister's other great proposal is to introduce a levy on households of up to €5 a week on their refuse. The logic of these proposals is to get people to recycle more, according to the Minister. Here local government does have a role. It will collect the new taxes from householders who are, effectively, being denied any say in the waste management strategy.

That will be in place of existing costs.

Once again the Government plans to make the householder and not the polluter pay. The last Government and its predecessors failed miserably to manage our massive waste problem. They presided over the lowest levels of waste reduction and recycling in Europe. That is an indictment of the Government and its predecessors. They failed to put in place a national strategy aimed at reducing the output of waste by manufacturers, the packaging and retail industries and the construction industry.

It is amazing that independent assessments claim Ireland has one of the best strategies.

They have failed to create an infrastructure to recycle the maximum possible volume of waste. Instead, they stood idly by even over recent months while the State's only glass recycling plant, the Irish Glass Bottle Company in Ringsend, was closed with the loss of hundreds of jobs.

Rather than target the producers of waste, the Government has based its waste management policy on a network of incinerators which will need a constant stream of refuse to operate. It also plans to penalise even further the householders who find themselves at the end of the waste chain, having to dispose of waste they did not create. These plans must be resisted.

The Minister has complained that the Government is "knee deep" in reports. Now he has decided to paper over the cracks in the Government's waste management strategy by pushing through as many incinerator projects as possible. This will, no doubt, make the waste management industry happy. It should be no surprise that the employers' organisation, IBEC, has welcomed the Minister's proposals, given that the new charges on households mean a let-off for IBEC member companies, who are the main producers of packaging waste. Interestingly, both IBEC and the Government seem to be against discussing a zero waste option. In IBEC's case, there is the money to be made from building and running incinerator projects.

Already, 25 expressions of interest have been received by the Dublin Government for building a so-called waste to energy incinerator in Dublin's Poolbeg area.

The Dublin Government? Is there another Government in this country?

The €200 million incinerator will generate millions for its new owners by burning up to 400,000 tonnes of the city's waste annually.

This is the Government of the sovereign Irish people.

Here we have the holy trinity of Fianna Fáil, the Progressive Democrats and employers undermining and eroding local democracy. They will help industry make as much profit as possible without regard to the consequences and they propose to make the consumer pay for it.

We welcome the amendments in this legislation. They demonstrate that there is vibrant and dynamic opposition in Leinster House to the incineration options. Section 22(10)(a) will reverse the anti-democratic legislation introduced by the former Minister for the Environment and Local Government. It returns the power to develop and implement waste management strategies to locally elected representatives. This section also returns power to councils to ensure that waste management plans ratified by local authorities are implemented by county managers. The importance of this monitoring function is vital, as many good elements of waste management plans have not been implemented by local council management. Section 22(10)(b) puts the incineration option out of bounds. This is only right as we must make it clear that incineration or any of its pseudonyms, such as waste to energy projects of thermolysis, do not have any part to play in a real waste reduction strategy.

Bringing incineration to Ireland is equivalent to bringing the nuclear industry to Ireland. It is dirty, harmful to health and, most importantly, it is unnecessary.

I welcome this Waste Management (Amendment) Bill as a major contribution to putting a strategy in place for efficient waste management throughout the country. It makes it incumbent on each local authority to draw up and implement a waste management plan, with the emphasis on waste separation, recycling and the provision of a schedule for minimisation targets as part of a zero waste strategy.

Government investment in recycling centres is of paramount importance to encourage private waste companies to become involved in the recycling process. It is essential to develop a recycling ethic nationally, particularly through schools, in order to ensure its success. I congratulate all the schools, teachers and pupils who have raised local awareness of waste management and the environment.

The success of the plastic bag levy is a case in point, where a proposal caught the imagination of the public, forced people to think positively about using alternatives such as the "lifetime" bags and became an unqualified success, with resultant benefits for the recycling cause. It was conservatively estimated that 1.3 billion plastic bags were used annually in Ireland, that is, roughly 350 bags per individual in the country. In the United States, paper bags have been used for many years and have wide acceptance. Waste separation using differently coloured bins has been long established in the United States. It is illegal to place organic waste in bins. Glass is placed in blue coloured bins, with newspapers placed on the kerbside, and the only requirement is for the papers to be bound together with cord.

In Ireland, most of our paper banks have disappeared without trace. I feel particularly guilty about disposing of large volumes of newspapers in the regular bins. The excuse given for ending paper recycling was that there was a glut of paper on the world markets and that recycling paper was not economically viable.

We need to consider landfills as potential resource centres from which energy can be recovered to the benefit of the entire community. About 10 megawatts of power is recovered from methane gas emissions from landfills in the greater Dublin area and fed into the national electricity grid. In Britain such landfills provide light and heating on a permanent basis to numerous boroughs in Britain's major cities.

In my constituency the proposal for an incinerator at Killacorn, near Emyvale, has been a source of considerable concern for some time. This process, euphemistically called "thermal treatment", is widely used in the United States and in Europe. Citizens' coalitions of grassroots environmental groups have grown up in more than 20 states to oppose incineration. Throughout continental Europe, such incinerators have constant instances of thermal emission breaches and respiratory illnesses, lung cancer, etc., are particularly prevalent. The release of dioxins, sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide into the atmosphere will exacerbate atmospheric pollution and chronic illnesses.

Emissions also contain cancer causing heavy metals, as well as toxic chemicals, which have serious detrimental effects on male and female reproductive systems, cause severe immune system neutralisation, as well as inducing adverse hormonal effects within a radius of 30 miles from the incinerator. Dioxins enter the food chain through their accumulation in fats, meat, poultry, milk and even mothers' milk. This is due to emissions from the incinerator being carried for a distance of about 30 miles by wind currents. Falling with the rain, dioxins land on vegetation, which in turn is eaten by animals, thus entering the food chain.

Incinerators operate 24 hours a day and there is no satisfactory monitoring system to detect breaches of dioxin levels in the emissions. The highly toxic flue ash or residue from the thermal treatment or burning process is used as a base for car parks, paths, etc., and it contains levels of dioxins, lead, arsenic and mercury which have been estimated to be 800 times above the safety level. The history of violations, non-compliance and environmental harm caused by incinerators in Europe and the US clearly reveals the difficulties and dangers of disposing of waste through this process. North Monaghan, and Killacorn in particular, can do without this threat to the environment and public health.

We are in the throes of a waste crisis. Increased affluence is invariably accompanied by the generation of vast quantities of waste, unless people are provided with incentives to change their previous patterns of behaviour. Everyone is aware of the overriding need to reduce the volume of refuse and recycle. Such terms have almost become buzz-words. The question of replacing plastic packaging, beverage cans and glass bottles has long been ignored.

The building industry is not blameless in generating huge quantities of rubble, conservatively estimated as accounting for 40% of municipal solid waste. We are racing headlong towards a situation where landfill sites will no longer be available and local authorities will be required to have their own individual waste management plans in place within their own boundaries. The Bill is designed to hasten that process and I welcome it.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

I welcome the fact that the Green Party has published this Bill so early in the life of this Dáil because once again its Members have demonstrated that they lack any substance and are bereft of ideas when it comes to being serious about the environment. With the publication of the Waste Management (Amendment) Bill, 2002, the Green Party – it is important to emphasise that it is the Irish Green Party – has again demonstrated that it lacks any kind of political maturity. Rather than construct a reasoned and realistic waste management policy based on the facts, it remains wedded to the soft option, the publicity stunt and the elevation of woolly aspiration above actual achievement. Put simply, until such time as Ireland's Greens put substance before soundbite and adopt a serious and pragmatic approach to environmental management issues, as many of their European counterparts have done, they cannot and will not be taken seriously.

This Bill is no more than a stunt, a needless distraction that seeks to negate the steps taken under the Waste Management (Amendment) Act, 2001, to bring the waste planning process to a satisfactory conclusion. It would lead to a further round of planning controversy, as well as disrupt the ongoing implementation of the regional waste management plans adopted last year. It would deny the option of energy recovery from waste, a legitimate process utilised for environmental benefit throughout the European Union and further afield. This is unacceptable.

I am determined to keep our focus on the early delivery of improved waste services and a modern, sustainable waste management infrastructure. Accordingly, it is my duty, as Minister, to oppose the Bill. There is a consensus that waste management is poorly developed and that early action is needed. We are experiencing steadily increasing waste arisings, reflecting ongoing and still relatively robust economic development. The amount of waste being recycled is increasing significantly, but from a very low base. We had one of the lowest rates of municipal waste recycling in the European Union, although we are now approaching the EU average. We have no significant biological treatment capacity and no energy recovery infrastructure. Consequently, we are heavily reliant on landfill to deal with our waste arisings, but many of our landfills are small and require significant upgrading to ensure requisite environmental protection. We face an imminent shortfall in national landfill capacity. This cannot continue.

In policy terms, we are committed to a long overdue move away from one dimensional and unsophisticated waste practices towards a modern, environmentally sustainable system of waste management. Our objectives are clearly stated in our published policy documents. Our challenge can be put simply: sound waste management demands a significant environmental and lifestyle behaviour change. Essentially, we need to radically transform the way we think about and deal with waste. We need an integrated waste management approach which incorporates innovative policy initiatives and fiscal measures to decouple as far as possible ongoing economic growth and waste generation.

An empty qualification.

Where waste arises, we want to deploy recovery options that will deliver much higher levels of materials recycling and biological treatment, and recover energy from combustible wastes that cannot be recycled. With all of this in view, we have come through a lengthy and often difficult regional planning process. These plans entail the provision of integrated waste management services and infrastructure with a balance of local and large-scale facilities. Typically, they provide for local awareness raising and waste minimisation efforts; the segregation at source and separate collection of recyclable and organic materials in urban areas; extended networks of "bring" facilities for recyclable materials, especially in rural areas; civic amenity sites and waste transfer stations; biological treatment of green and organic household waste; materials recovery facilities; thermal treatment facilities; and baling and residual landfill requirements. I am now preparing a national overview of these waste plans to make sure that, taken in the round, they can fully deliver on our requirements. Overall, however, I am satisfied that they create a sound basis for sustainable waste management into the future.

What we need now is action and implementation. At national level I am intent on bringing forward a range of new initiatives, including a national waste prevention programme; a market development programme for recyclable materials; further producer responsibility initiatives; an office of environmental enforcement to secure improved enforcement performance, including in relation to illegal waste activities; a national strategy on biodegradable municipal waste, which reflects the requirements of the EU landfill directive; and bans on the landfilling of recyclable materials.

At regional and local level we need to improve public education and awareness, continue the expansion of segregated collection services and "bring" facilities, and ensure the rapid provision of the infrastructure necessary properly to manage our various waste streams. Providing new infrastructure on the scale needed represents a major and expensive undertaking. Solutions will be delivered through constructive engagement between the public and private sectors, ranging from informal agreements regarding the delivery or services and facilities to more formal joint venture arrangements and fully fledged public-private partnerships, or PPPs, especially where the delivery of regional infrastructure is concerned.

Progress in the development of PPPs is well advanced in the Dublin region in particular. An environment fund has been established to which the revenues from the landfill and plastic bag levies are hypothecated. A new capital grants scheme is in place to incentivise the rapid provision of waste recycling facilities. I recently announced a first round of grant allocations of up to €15 million towards local authority infrastructure and further allocations will follow as soon as possible early in the new year. However, while the Government and local authorities are now pressing forward in honest endeavour, the Green Party seeks to fight past battles based on a policy perspective that, frankly, does not seem to be shared by their European counterparts.

Not true.

Essentially, the Bill seeks to facilitate the early variation or replacement of existing regional waste plans in order to exclude waste incineration and provide for certain measures intended to pay lip service to the concept of "zero waste". Under section 2 of the Waste Management Act, 1996, the variation or replacement of a waste management plan is already a reserved function. However, a local authority may not, without the consent of the relevant manager, vary or replace a plan within a period of four years of the plan being made.

Again, not true. It was introduced in Cork.

Deputy Boyle should allow the Minister to continue without interruption.

If the Greens listened, they may learn something, instead of sticking their heads in the sand.

It is not a reserved function.

Deputy McCormack should allow the Minister to continue without interruption.

This provision was introduced last year to ensure a period of stability.

I do not like misleading statements being made.

If Deputies have something substantial to say to me, I will listen to them, but I do not want to listen to hot air. If they want to deal with facts, I will listen and if they want to bring forward strategies, I will engage with them, but if they want to talk pie in the sky, I will not.

That is arrogance.

The Minister should address his remarks through the Chair, otherwise he is inviting interruptions.

My apologies, a Cheann Comhairle.

It is a big business agenda.

(Interruptions).

It is interesting that when the leader of the Green Party spoke a while ago, he mentioned what was happening in Australia. I would like to refresh his memory about the current position in Australia. He referred to the great plans the Australian Capital Territories Government had. I am happy to inform the House that the ACT Government now proposes new targets for the 2010 strategy and has acknowledged that the whole strategy needs to be relaunched within the community. Melbourne had a policy of no waste and almost 80% of its waste was going into landfill but now it has announced it is assessing thermal treatment technology as part of its strategy to 2005. So much for Deputy Sargent's great enunciation on what is happening in Australia when it has abandoned everything it started two or three years ago, realising those were nothing but woolly aspirations.

There is a reality in the waste management infrastructure in Ireland which divides it into four streams. The great environmentalist countries which are often referred to here, the Scandinavian countries, all use thermal treatment as part of their strategies. The strategy in this country—

Will the Minister use the word "incinerator"?

I have no problem with the word. I will be using it when I come to thermal treatment. I will put some facts before the House, though Deputy Boyle will not want me to.

Essentially the Bill seeks to facilitate the early variation or replacement of regional waste plans. As I said before I was interrupted, under section 22 this provision was introduced last year to ensure a period of stability during which local authorities can focus on plan implementation. I do not propose to remove this safeguard. The regional waste management plans adopted last year are not just, or even mainly, about thermal treatment, as the Greens would like to propagate. They are about better integrated waste management services for the regions, delivering a much higher recycling performance, recovering energy from waste which cannot be recycled, and using landfill as the last resort for residual wastes which cannot otherwise be treated.

Thermal treatment, whether by incineration or other technologies, is envisaged as only one component of an integrated infrastructure which will facilitate recycling and biological treatment of 40% to 50% of waste. Opposition to thermal treatment proposals centres on two issues: perceived risks to public health, and a perceived conflict between incineration and materials recycling. For the benefit of those who have an open mind in this matter, there is an informed consensus that modern municipal waste incinerators, employing modern technologies and subject to compliance with strict environmental standards, do not present a significant risk to the environment or public health.

They said the same about nuclear power.

The Deputy should give me a moment and then he will have some real facts to chew over. The fact is that all significant waste facilities are subject to full environmental impact assessment, planning controls and a rigorous environmental licensing system operated by the EPA, which must take the precautionary principle into account.

Like Sellafield.

The Deputy should not compare or pretend to the public to compare nuclear energy to the integrated waste management system in Ireland.

I will. It is the same principle.

It typifies for me the Deputy's naysaying approach to everything about the Ireland in which we live.

The Minister is looking after big business.

The Minister without interruption.

If Ireland had been left to the likes of Deputy Higgins ten or 15 years ago we would not have created 700,000 jobs and reduced unemployment from 17% to 4%. Deputy Higgins would have maintained it at 17%.

Nonsense. Dublin would not come to a halt after a night's rainfall.

All significant waste facilities are subject to rigorous involvement with the EPA, which is statutorily independent in the performance of its functions. The EPA considers that municipal waste incineration, operating to the best modern standards and incorporating energy recovery, is preferable to landfill from an environmental viewpoint.

Particular attention has focused on dioxin emissions from proposed thermal treatment facilities. The fact is that dioxin levels in Ireland are extremely low and despite the scare stories, there is no reason to expect that waste incineration, operated to current stringent standards, would have any significant effect on background levels. The Green Party knows this well. The main sources of dioxin emissions to air are and continue to be uncontrolled combustion sources – uncontrolled waste and wood burning, accidental vehicle and building fires, bonfires, fireworks, etc.

Again, not true. It is industrial combustion and the Minister knows it.

I know the Deputy finds this unpalatable, but to put matters into perspective, it is estimated that Halloween bonfires annually generate well over 100 times the level of dioxin emissions to air from Ireland's existing 11 hazardous waste incineration facilities. That is 100 times more than the combined output from the existing generators on Bonfire Night.

What is the source for that?

I have the source for it.

There are no measurements. That is uncorroborated.

There is limited time.

Give us the source.

Even with the proposed new thermal treatment facilities for municipal waste in operation—

The Minister does not know what he is talking about.

Give us the source.

I probably have access to the information and will put it before the Deputies in the not too distant future.

It is an EPA report.

The Minister should give way.

That is entirely at the discretion of the Member in possession.

It is in the forthcoming EPA report. That is where I got the facts.

Who is monitoring Halloween bonfires?

I will put the report before the House and if Deputy Gilmore wants to disagree with the EPA on its technical assessment he can do so. Emissions are monitored all over the country.

Who is monitoring bonfires?

The Minister should be allowed to continue. Deputy Gilmore will have an opportunity to contribute.

If, as usual, when Deputies cannot win an argument they want to play games with the facts, there is nothing I can do about it.

(Interruptions).

Even with the proposed new thermal treatment facilities for municipal waste in operation, their dioxin emissions to air are expected to remain a fraction of those from bonfires alone. There are many more examples. Deputies may want to make jokes—

It is not a joke.

—but waste management is very serious.

Deputy Higgins, I will have to ask you to leave the House. You will have your opportunity to speak.

That is very unfair.

The Minister is entitled to make his contribution.

Incineration and high recycling levels are not mutually exclusive. They could be, if incineration was prioritised and insufficient effort was put into composting and materials recycling but our regional plans clearly provide for the reverse. They first provide for maximum achievable recycling, with targets of up to 50%, and only then do they give consideration to thermal treatment and landfill of the remaining waste. Under these plans, the capacity of the proposed thermal treatment facilities is deliberately limited. The argument that the provision of thermal treatment means incinerators would have to be fed, thereby reducing efforts to recycle, is not valid. We are committed to meeting specific EU and national recycling targets.

Throughout the EU the most environmentally progressive member states combine an impressive recycling performance with a significant reliance on thermal treatment as part of art integrated approach to waste management. In 2000 there were 304 incineration facilities operational in Europe, treating 50 million tonnes of waste and generating significant amounts of electricity and heat for district and industrial heating. The expectations are that reliance on incineration with energy recovery will increase, as the EU seeks to increase diversion of waste from landfill. Is everyone out of step except us?

In this regard, it is telling that the concerns expressed by the Green Party in Ireland do not appear to be shared by their European counterparts. For instance, until relatively recently, the Environment Ministers in France, Germany and Flanders all came from Green Parties. None of these Ministers saw fit to try to ban or phase out waste incineration with energy recovery. In fact, the Flemish Minister recently approved the provision of further municipal waste incineration capacity for that region. Why is the Irish Green Party out of step not only with environmentally sound waste practice throughout Europe, but also with European Greens?

Not true.

We also saw this in relation to another matter some months ago.

The Bill refers to a national "zero waste" strategy. Waste management plans would be required to provide that waste is recycled at the "lowest effective level", whatever that means. Every home would have to separate waste, suggesting that all will avail of segregated collection services. Each village and urban district in the State is to have a reusable material clearing depot. Do these proposals take account of either cost or practicality?

What is more interesting is what the Bill does not say. The Green Party's ten point plan for a zero waste strategy does not mention the word "landfill". This is another waste management option it finds unacceptable so it is wished away. Our waste is made to disappear in a cloud by a Green Party three card trick. Waste that cannot be recycled is to be cured and stored in locally based waste depots. Are unknown quantities of waste to be stored indefinitely in local housing estates? According to the Greens these storage waste facilities must be lined cell systems that control the flow of rain water, fluids and gasses from them. In effect, they propose a small landfill in each local authority area. They give no consideration to the need to reduce the number of landfills and achieve economies of scale that can support the application of modern environmental standards to such facilities.

Superdumps.

With this kind of woolly thinking is this a party whose proposals deserve to be taken seriously?

Zero waste is a concept that originally related to individual industrial concerns and has validity in that context. At national level the elimination of the need for landfill and 100% recycling without reliance on incineration is, and remains, simply an aspiration. Despite claims to the contrary no city, state or country anywhere has managed this feat or is even remotely close to doing so. There is nothing wrong with long-term aspiration but it cannot be allowed to impede the taking of action that is required now to meet today's problems.

Sinn Féin has also wrapped the green mantle of zero waste about itself and, no doubt, will also support the Bill. Sinn Féin's waste policies are even more threadbare than those of the Green Party. Among other populist positions they oppose all forms of incineration. They seek to reverse the privatisation of local authority waste services while at the same time opposing household waste charges, denying local authorities the funding necessary to run these services. This position clearly disregards both the polluter pays principle and relevant EU legislation.

I could comment on the legislative validity of certain provisions of the Bill. For instance, I doubt the provision in subsection 2(a) is legally meaningful, given that all local authorities have already made plans prior to the date specified in subsection (2), and hereafter may only vary or replace such plans.

That is ridiculous.

However, as my position regarding the Bill is one of fundamental opposition rather than concern about legal drafting there is little merit in further such comment.

After years of painstaking effort at national, regional and local level, we now have a clear policy direction underpinned by an effective legal framework and clear objectives and targets, and we are committing significant resources to achieve progress.

What is clearly now needed is action, implementation and delivery. It would be better if, in going forward, we had the active support of a party that claims such strong environmental credentials. Instead, however, the Green Party seeks to obstruct and delay and make woolly proposals which will have no effect in dealing with the serious waste problem in the country. I am not prepared to see their policies succeed. Accordingly, I oppose this Bill.

It is a relatively short time since the Waste Management (Amendment) Act, 2001 was debated at some length in the House and tortuously in committee. Numerous amendments were proposed by Deputy Gilmore and others and those of us who were members of the select committee became more familiar with waste man agement strategies and with viewpoints on them than we had ever expected. Some of the issues which have been raised tonight were discussed at that time and the positions in relation to them have not changed much.

We are all aware of the controversy which surrounds the issue of waste management in local areas. The history of landfills, particularly at a time when local authorities were short of cash, is bad. Councils were unable to devote sufficient resources to them and management was poor. We face a growing mountain of waste and we must deal with it. I was a member of a local authority which had one such landfill site close to the town of Ennis. The authority faced a very expensive legal action, which it lost, and was put in the invidious position of having to find an alternative site. It was a difficult process which created difficulties for many people.

I am prepared and disposed to approach this debate from a practical point of view, taking account of experience in my own area and nationally. It is also incumbent on us to take account of best international practice and experience. In that context, the Waste Management (Amendment) Bill, 2002, flies in the face of common sense and reason. Environmental management issues demand serious debate and effective and workable policies. The regional waste management plans which were adopted last year generated huge controversy. This Bill would disrupt their implementation and create chaos in the area of waste management.

They were adopted by the managers.

Not in all places.

We must face up to the fact that we are barely managing our waste, as the Deputy opposite knows better than most. He is a member of a local authority which could not be said to be even barely managing.

We cannot continue to delay and pretend there is no need for a modern sustainable waste management structure. The effect of this Bill would be to undermine the efforts of a great many agencies and individuals to deliver improved waste services. No one can deny that waste management is a critical issue and one which we have not excelled at addressing.

Increased waste recycling is encouraging but we are beginning from a very low base. Traditionally it was the lowest in the EU and while we are coming close to the EU average we have a huge amount of work to do in the area of recycling. We must be prepared to embrace modern technology and to change our focus if effective systems become available. We traditionally relied almost exclusively on landfill. Most landfills were small and inadequately funded. They were certainly inadequately managed and most had no environmental protection. We are currently beset by a shortage of landfill nationally. It is a miracle that we are barely coping and we cannot afford to have this position further undermined.

People who live near the newer landfills have good reason to be nervous about their possible detrimental effects. They are undoubtedly making their judgments on the history of the mismanagement of landfills. Some are quick to attribute the NIMBY factor to local objections. This is grossly unfair and I do not blame local people for taking issue on the basis of their own and others' experience. It is inevitable that we move, to some extent, away from landfill. The challenge is to devise and finance a modern, environmentally sustainable system of waste management. We cannot afford to fail.

Neither can we avoid additional biological treatment capacity and the provision of an energy recovery infrastructure. This requires an integrated waste management approach and fundamental lifestyle changes from everyone – individuals, corporations and all who are part of the problem. The polluter pays principle needs to take effect at the manufacturing stage more than at the end of the cycle. I am in danger of agreeing with Deputy Joe Higgins on that point. It is one we need to address. We have long advocated a carrot and stick approach but the evidence suggests that the stick will need to brought to bear more than heretofore.

We must face up to the fact that no matter how far recycling strategies advance there will still be waste to be disposed of. It is all very well to aspire to a zero waste situation but if that is attainable it is a long way off and there will be a long interim during which we will have to deal with the problem.

Despite technological advances the real options are landfill and combustion, ideally combustion which recovers energy. In general, the regional waste management strategy seeks to balance local and large scale facilities.

It is encouraging that more and more householders are prepared to co-operate with bottle banks and Bring areas. In many areas there is not a sufficient number of these facilities. There is also a hard core of citizens who will never be prepared to co-operate with this strategy. People in these circumstances frequently call for the matter to be addressed through the education system and the schools. My 20 years of experience in that particular area force me to be somewhat cynical in that regard because we must accept that the kind of example young people see in respect of littering is truly appalling. It would be impossible for any education system to redress the balance. However, schools do play an important role and local communities, when there is community activity and involvement, have also been proactive, and effectively so.

In my area, most of the people who collect waste are local contractors – people who are new to the business – and they tell me that a very important part of their income stream comes from recycling. They say that it is becoming increasingly important to their long-term plans.

I am sharing my time with Deputy Gilmore.

Waste management is at crisis point and it is said that it will deteriorate even further unless realistic measures are put in place to address the problem. At present, landfill is the main disposal method for dealing with our waste. Over 90% of waste is disposed of in this manner, leaving Ireland with one of the worst recycling rates in Europe. Fine Gael commits itself to reverse this trend by immediately tackling years of policy neglect and one of our first priorities would be the setting up of a national waste management authority, whose remit would be to implement a national programme of recycling, re-use and reduction in conjunction with local authorities by developing the necessary waste management infrastructure.

I am concerned at the present ad hoc arrangement and I believe the agency could bridge local authority and regional borders to co-ordinate and give real effect to a national programme of waste management. The agency would also ensure that best waste management practice became the common standard throughout the State.

I am totally in favour of actively promoting a programme of waste reduction and minimisation. I do not look on waste as a product that we must dispose of, but as a resource, and we must maximise its re-use and recycling potential. The primary objective is to promote waste minimisation and recycling.

The concept of "zero waste" should be incorporated in all approaches to managing the nation's waste. Zero waste is not only about recycling and diverting waste from landfill, but also about examining the production of waste and aiming to ensure that producers of waste bear responsibility. The approach to zero waste management would have three important elements. Firstly, consumers and local authorities would be asked to look at waste as a resource by ensuring separate bin collections to households, providing compost bins to all households and banning certain wastes from landfills, such as biodegradable waste, batteries and tyres. Secondly, businesses and producers of waste would be asked to seek out material efficiencies and redesign products and packaging that the community could not use, repair, recycle or compost. Producers' responsibility would be extended for their products and packaging by establishing take-back, re-use and manufacturing schemes. This would be achieved by providing incentives to discourage over-packaging; running product take-back schemes pertaining to products such as end-of life-vehicles, electrical and electronic goods; and introducing packaging take-back schemes, for example, deposit return sales. Thirdly, we would support and develop "zero waste" policies by providing recycling subsidies of a fixed payment per tonne for specific materials; developing stable markets to offset the volatility of recycled products; designating recycling as a manufacturing industry for capital grant and taxation purposes; charging Enterprise Ireland and the county enterprise boards with the task of identifying commercial applications for waste resources and assisting indigenous companies to develop recycling as a business; pursuing policies at EU level to ensure that the banning of certain packaging products will not be viewed as anti-competitive; controlling at source the production of hazardous waste by introducing regulations to ensure all licences and licence reviews address the minimisation, re-use and recycling of such waste; ensuring that planning applications address the minimisation, re-use and recycling of building materials; introducing regulations or specifications to ensure the re-use of building materials; and introducing regulations in respect of product manufacture that will make them easier to recycle, for example, plastic rings and labels on plastic bottles.

I recognise there will always be some residual waste for end disposal, but I believe that our waste management proposals would result in a significant reduction in the waste destined for landfill. A very successful programme operated by Cork City Council and Galway City Council should be looked at. For example, in Galway, the council has already managed to divert over 60% of waste from landfill and it is an indication that policies which aim to implement a zero waste policy can be successful.

Public concerns regarding incineration are based on real fears relating to dioxin and particulate matter emissions. The landfill disposal of residual toxic ash material has also caused concern. Properly engineered and well-run landfill sites are the best option available to dispose of waste that has been stripped of all its recyclable products.

The Government's waste incineration policy must be questioned and, when given the opportunity at the Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Local Government, I will propose and press for the setting up of an Oireachtas sub-committee to examine all alternative waste disposal options. This committee should be given resources and the support of experts who could be consulted and who could give advice. We could initiate an all-party approach to a very serious problem.

Policies that look on waste as a resource must be expanded and promoted at all times in preference to incineration. The news in the past week that the Minister has cut recycling grants to local authorities by €5 million is a serious setback to Ireland's waste management policy. We are being told by this Government that better waste management is one of its top priorities and that the early implementation of regional waste management plans is a cornerstone of that project. However, the Government is now cutting millions from grants to local authorities to provide recycling services.

The reality is that pious platitudes from the Government are just not good enough. What is required to achieve our objectives is the allocation of resources to our local authorities, not cutbacks. This is just another example of the Government preaching one thing and doing the opposite. These latest cutbacks are a hammer blow to the Government's long-promised plans to protect the environment.

I thank Deputy Allen for sharing his time with me and enabling me to contribute to the opening debate on this Bill. I congratulate the Green Party on the introduction of its first Private Members' Bill for debate on Second Stage in the House. As Deputies Sargent and Boyle said earlier, it is an important occasion and one that should be acknowledged in the House.

The Labour Party will support this Bill although it does have some difficulties with regard to some of its detail and some items it feels are absent from it and which probably should have been included. Essentially, the Bill is seeking to undo the damage which was done to local democracy by the Waste Management Act, 2001, which I strongly opposed on behalf of the Labour Party, as Deputy Killeen acknowledged. The legislation which was put through by the Minister's predecessor flew in the face of local democracy and transferred, notwithstanding what the present Minister states, to unelected local authority officials the power to make waste management plans.

More serious than allowing for the transfer to the county manager the responsibility for making a waste management plan, the Act also provided a short cut through the planning process for the establishment of waste facilities, especially for the anticipated development of incinerators around the country. The Minister said solutions will be delivered through constructive engagement between the public and private sectors, ranging from informal agreements regarding the delivery of services or facilities to more formal joint venture arrangements to fully fledged public private partnerships, or PPPs. This means that a waste infrastructure will be developed by private interests, who will be facilitated by the Act by being given a short cut through the planning process. Planning applications will be effectively circumvented.

The Green Party Bill also seeks to exclude incineration as an option for the treatment and management of waste. The Labour Party agrees with that position. Unfortunately, the Minister has not set out an alternative strategy. The Government takes a two-tier approach. The first, involving its public face, is expressed periodically in press statements, the launching of recycling grants and the publication of documents and the many reports burdening the Minister. In it the Government agrees to an approach to waste with which most in this House would agree. It includes an integrated waste management approach and a significant emphasis on recycling, re-use, recovery and prevention of waste.

However, nothing the Government does in practice advances this strategy. Recently the Minister announced grants totalling €15 million for recycling projects. This is a cutback on what was announced in previous years and it will do little or nothing to advance recycling. A lot of material is being collected for recycling but it is doubtful if it is being recycled. The Government allowed the closure of the only glass recycling facility, the Irish Glass Bottle Company at Ringsend, and the paper collected for recycling is shipped to the Far East or, in many cases, is dumped in landfill facilities. A make believe approach to recycling is in vogue while the real agenda, largely unspoken, is the advancement of the development of five or six regional incinerators.

The Waste Management Bill, 2001, was introduced by the Minister's predecessor because the Government had expressed its unhappiness that local and regional authorities were delaying the making and preparation of waste management plans. We were all given the impression that action and implementation was required and that as soon as the adoption of the waste management plans had been completed there would be a great deal of action in dealing with the waste problem, to be done against a backdrop, recognised by all, that existing landfills are filling up and are running down. Furthermore, the standards at which they must be managed are considerably higher than in the past which means that the option of landfill is dwindling as a viable solution.

Since the enactment of the Waste Management Act, 2001, the purpose of which was to force local and regional authorities to adopt waste management plans, there has been little or no action in advancing the waste management agenda. The Minister stated: "I am now preparing a national overview of these waste plans to ensure that, taken in the round, they can fully deliver on our requirements. Overall, I am satisfied they create a sound basis for sustainable waste management into the future." These plans were compiled, at considerable cost to the public purse, by waste management consultants. One firm of consultants was responsible for compiling a large number of them. The Waste Management Act, 2001, forced through this House and the other House by the Government, was supposed to ensure they would be adopted so we could proceed with their implementation. The Minister now says he is conducting a national overview of them to ensure that they can fully deliver on requirements.

The Deputy knows what I mean.

It worries me that I think I know what the Minister means. He is rewriting the script. The Minister has publicly said people should call a spade a spade when they address these issues. For some time Ministers have been shy about waste management and integrated waste management plans. Anybody reading through the Government's script and its coded messages knows it is wedded to incineration as the solution to the country's waste problems.

I have stated publicly that I consider incineration to be part of the solution.

We would have a much healthier debate about waste if the Government comes clean on this aspect, puts its cards on the table and declares itself in favour of incineration. It should tell us where the five or six regional incinerators will be located, what types of waste are to be incinerated and what type of technology will be employed. Those who disagree with that strategy, including the Labour Party, can make clear the alternative to that approach, as we have already done in a published document. We can also point out the implications in terms of the environment, cost and funding.

Debate adjourned.
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