James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for missing the presentations. I think I got the gist of it. Deputy Smith mentioned the Drehid landfill which is in my constituency of north Kildare, or it was until the boundary changed but it is still local to me.

One of the issues regarding it is the haulage routes. The landfill site is one issue but the haulage routes are problematic because a significant volume of HGVs and trucks use local backroads and travel through the towns of Sallins, Clane and Prosperous to approach the facility. When planning permission was granted there were four or more haulage routes identified to access the facility but I understand only two of those are being used. All the haulage routes are on the local rural roads. The county council has done its best to reinforce those roads and do some road upgrades but they are still not suitable for that volume of truck traffic. It occurs to me there might be another route. There is the Edenderry Road which passed through Kilshanroe. That might be an option to approach the back of the Drehid facility. It would be a higher class road and it might be a more appropriate avenue to access the plant. The representatives might comment on that suggestion or they might want to consider it and communicate with me later.

The other issue relates to the hierarchy of planning. I was involved in a local matter recently, which was a potential EPA issue. There was confusion about it and I attended a meeting of the county council. There is a hierarchy in terms of the waste permits, waste licences and the granting of planning permission. A group of disgruntled residents had an issue with a particular site, and the matter could have been referred to one or three bodies or none of them, in terms of whether it was an EPA issue, a county council environment issue or a county council planning issue or, arguably, a fourth body, An Bord Pleanála, depending on the nature of the facility. I do not know if there are any legislative or other reforms considered in that area. It seems the county council licensed the smaller ones, namely the waste permits, and that the EPA licensed the more significant ones. I am not sure what level of co-operation exists. A question raised at that meeting was whether, if the council had a concern, it would pass it on to the EPA. Is there communication to and fro regarding those types of sites or is there a silo approach to them? How does the process work currently? Is it cumbersome? Do issues arise? Are there any plans to consider streamlining or addressing that issue?