Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

In a week in which waste dominated proceedings in this House, it is perhaps ironic that it is the last matter to be discussed. However, I refer to waste of a different order, pertaining to the issue of recycling facilities. This is national recycling week. Rehab and Repak have run advertisements on national and local television and radio stations and people have been induced to bring along their recycling materials by the possibility of winning a car, assuming they live in an area with a recycling facility.

There is no recycling facility in the constituency of Kildare North, where I live. Two exist in Kildare South but I live an hour's drive from the closest one. There is one in Kilcullen on a former landfill site and another in Athy, which was purpose built. Its construction was completed almost a year before it opened, because the local authority had neither the staff nor the money to do so. I wish to raise this aspect of recycling.

Earlier this year, performance indicators relating to recycling were issued on a range of 41 topics. Kildare County Council fared quite poorly with a figure of 7%, but was by no means the worst. I understand that Galway City Council performed best with a figure of almost 50%. Hence, there is a wide disparity in performance across the country.

We must go beyond performance indicators and ask why this is happening. Is it because people are not co-operating or is goodwill lacking? One factor which operates as a disincentive is the manner in which local authorities are funded. I accept that on the west coast, the argument that its infrastructure lags behind is justifiable. However on the east coast, development pressures are bringing their own problems. The Minister is familiar with this because his constituency is similar to mine in that regard.

Some local authorities have little discretion. For example, last year Kildare County Council received an increase from the local government fund which looked good on paper. However, all the additional money was taken up by the cost of buying extra water from Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council to cater for the influx of new people to the county, by the additional staff required to operate the augmented waste water treatment plants and for the benchmarking awards. No additional money was available for anything else. The expenditure was necessary, but the example demonstrates how the scope for other activities is lacking.

The fund has some weaknesses. It presumes all authorities start from the same base and that there is no progression subsequently. As guarantees were given that no local authority would lose out, the possibility of local authorities which have lagged behind receiving an increase depends on the fund's buoyancy. It does not seriously consider the impact of population increases. There is competition between the provision of traffic calming, disabled persons' grants and recycling facilities. All are needed, but when one is obliged to make choices, it partially explains why recycling has lost out in this respect.

Door to door collection appears to be the most successful means of dealing with recycling. However, local bottle banks are being inappropriately used by people leaving domestic waste beside them, which is in part a response to the introduction of the pay-by-weight system. Some bottle banks had to be taken away because of this problem, so we are losing recycling facilities. The door to door approach seems to produce the greatest dividends.

The operation of the local government fund is under review at present. I ask the Minister to examine the possibility of building an incentive into it so that issues like recycling are taken into account. I do not see how it can happen otherwise. While a view exists that recycling always saves money, it can be quite expensive to put facilities in place in the first instance. Some incentives should be built into the fund's operation to achieve the kind of return whereby performances around the country become more consistent. Perhaps this time next year, during national recycling week, we might have a better set of figures showing progress in this regard.

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