Mr. Adrian Kane:

There is a huge causal relationship between illegal dumping and the fact 23% of all households have no waste collection service. The point is made in the IPA report that there is no mention of illegal dumping in reference to the comparator cities of Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Salzburg. It is not an issue because there is 100% coverage among householders in those cities. It does not take a rocket scientist to add things up and see what is happening. There are costs to the State in coming in after market failure and cleaning up illegal dumping. As our colleague Ms Flood noted, the State is not accurately recording the cost of illegal dumping. It is possible to set out those costs to suit one's case, as we might see happening in the next session. However, where there is a will, there is a way.