Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Before we move on, from what the Cathaoirleach said earlier and on the basis of my experience in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, we do not have enough litter wardens. If we took a vox pop of the committee, we could all speak to our local authorities and say there are not enough litter wardens, particularly in rural local authorities which have vast areas. Senator Pauline O'Reilly referred to the laneway that is regularly dumped in. Nobody can see it but the local authority is charged with cleaning it up. It is all well and good having legislation which states that it is the responsibility of the local authority to issue the penalty notice and to do all that, but if, under the legislation, we are not looking to fund it through collecting levies, that is missing a key part of this. We have to be realistic. There is no point in having the legislation if we cannot enforce it. Enforcement is a requirement, unfortunately, in certain local authority areas because of the volume of waste that must be dealt with on a regular basis.