Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I wish to refer to appendix 3, which is the estimate of the total cost of remediation for landfill sites where remediation works are still required. Any of us who were on local authorities know this is a residual issue. The landfill site in Kildare was big and growing to become a mountain before it went on fire. It then cost a fortune to carry out remediation works. These situations can be problematic. A total of €191 million has been spent on a programme to identify sites. That was a requirement of the EU. There was an infringement case, ECJ C494/01, broughton the grounds of non-compliance with the waste framework directive. That €191 million is that amount that will be spent by the Exchequer. These dumps were run by private entities and those entities need to be chased to ensure additional money is brought in. This problem does not lie exclusively on the State side. We should be writing back to the Department and asking it to get us the total list of the sites that have been identified by local authorities. The Department states there are 494 sites. Where are they? What are the outstanding issues? Is the Department chasing the people who caused the problem in the first place? Just because there is finance there for remediation, the foot should not be taken off the pedal in going after people who have brought destruction. Very often, there are repeat offenders in that regard.

I remember a high-profile case in Priorswood, somewhere near Coolock or Darndale. It was nearly in the middle of a housing estate. We might specifically ask about that. Dublin City Council had to launch a planning application. Deputy Hourigan might know about this. The council had to launch a planning process to remediate it. As I say, these things do not happen by accident. There must be a penalty for the people who caused the problem in the first place and who have benefited from it.