Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

As I said earlier to Deputy Bruton, we are now going to significantly change the whole waste system towards zero single-use plastics and there will be an increase in obligations on the producers, particularly commercial operators. Waste is not segregated effectively in many commercial premises. We need to radically improve our food waste collection system. Work is being done with the industry, Repak and others to devise the measures under the new waste action plan for a circular economy. It was largely the local authorities in Dublin and, I am sure, the rest of the country that switched away from the centralised municipal waste collection system. If I were to try to reverse engines in that regard, it would take all of the next four years and all the other projects would have to be reconsidered or redrafted. The big recycling centres and so on are part of that system and I do not think it will be feasible for us to go back to the system we had two or three decades ago of a single municipal collection system. I can see the sense in it and understand the political thinking behind it but I do not think it is deliverable in the immediate future. I would prefer to focus on more urgent matters. We have a real waste challenge here. It is not only about increasing recycling rates and so on, it is also about reducing waste because there are only one or two landfill sites left. We do not want to build huge amounts of new incinerators so reducing waste is the key focus. If I were to reconfigure the whole system and ask Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, South Dublin County Council, Kildare County Council or other local authorities to re-establish the old waste system, we would not be focused on the immediate challenges in front of us.

On the support for vulnerable persons, the waste enforcement division is currently reviewing the efforts made to date to deliver supports for vulnerable persons with conditions such as lifelong or long-term medical incontinence. That is something at which the waste enforcement division is looking at specifically and I will ask its representatives to come back to the Deputy directly with details on that issue.

I do not have details in front of m about the air quality initiative. There has, in recent years, been consideration of the need to upgrade our monitoring systems. We did not have an effective monitoring system. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department have put in a lot of work to increase monitoring and impose additional monitoring units.

That has been one of the key initiatives accounting for the small but very important budget increase.

The Deputy is right that Covid has shown us the importance of air quality. Areas with significant air quality problems had a higher incidence of hospitalisation. The two go together.