Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

Based on various calculations required under law, the economics of public private partnership are built on a foundation of sand. The waste management planning regulations of 1997 require a waste management plan to include systems for monitoring the before, during and after of any changes made by the plan. The waste management plan agreed by the elected members of Dublin City Council in point 11.3.2 on page 77 require city officials to record such statistics but they will not make that information available to the public.

There is a dispute among officials at local and national levels regarding the legal and statistical basis upon which certain formal calculations are made. We are told that for reasons of commercial sensitivity details of the new contract negotiated by the Danish Oil and Natural Gas Company, DONG, which bought out the collapsed Elsam firm, cannot be revealed. What kind of nonsense is this? Who invented this rule?

We will be paying the money for this project. There was a time when public projects were put up for tender and, under the laws of public procurement, the lowest price did not automatically win the contract. The best suited contractor, when price and experience were taken into account, would win the contract but every other competitor in the public procurement process would be informed of the outcome of the tendering process. Suddenly this information is secret and cannot be obtained due to commercial sensitivities. That was the explanation Mr. Matt Twomey, assistant city manager, gave the public when the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley, and I were both on this side of the House and queried Deputy Gormley's predecessor on this matter.

Who else is bidding to build an incinerator in the Dublin area and what commercial sensitivity applies? What legal advice did the Minister take from lawyers in the Green Party regarding his manoeuvrability on this issue? The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley, correctly says that our former constituency colleague, Mr. Michael McDowell, did not sit in the Custom House as Minister for Justice, Equality and Law reform and did not possess the statutory powers of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in this regard. Mr. McDowell was merely a Cabinet colleague and he could ask and make requests, but the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley, has executive powers which he is failing to implement in terms of value for money and the legal constraints on the contract that has been agreed.

Nobody knows the terms of the contract agreed with DONG. We do not know if they are compliant and we do not know if they are costed. I am sure Merrion Street would like information in this regard. Earlier today we were told that public scrutiny by the Opposition in this House is being eroded systematically. We can no longer ask questions about the Health Service Executive and prosecutions of people who do not pay the television licence fee. I thought the Green Party went into Government to avoid the shackles of impotence that are being imposed on the Opposition. I thought the purpose of having the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Deputy Trevor Sargent, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley, at the Cabinet table was to allow them request this information. I thought they could use their extensive powers to get a second opinion and to review the commercial viability of the Poolbeg incinerator, because we are ahead of our targets for waste reduction and the volume of incinerable waste is falling.

Can the Minister examine the change in circumstances regarding access to the site? In case he does not know I can tell the Minister, as one of his constituents, that from 4 p.m. until around 7 p.m., from the Merrion Gates or the Martello tower to the toll bridge, traffic is back to back. The Minister knows, from living in Ringsend, what traffic is like. Now we are to be asked to allow more trucks into the area, though we cannot get the precise number calculated from Mr. Matt Twomey. Deputy Olivia Mitchell is recognised by all in this House as a person who knows the traffic statistics for the greater Dublin area and she points out that the traffic implications of the location of the Poolbeg incinerator may be serious.

The acting leader of the Green Party has given the Minister plenty of cover for tonight but when he has time he might tell the people in Ringsend Park, Sandymount and O'Rahilly House not what he did in the past, not how he saved the world from bio-burn and so on, but rather how he consciously compromised his principles to go into office. On balance, the Minister felt he could do some good inside the tent and I can accept that logic and have applied it to myself previously. Now the Minister must deliver and must find every instrument of power and ingenuity open to him. He must not take no for an answer.

I once received no for an answer when I was told that under EU law I could not ban the importation of South African fruit. The Attorney General of the time said it was not possible but, because I wanted to find an answer and would not take no for an answer, we ultimately found a legally viable solution to the conundrum. If being a Green Party member in Cabinet means anything the Minister must start finding answers soon. He can start by tearing up the ridiculous script he read into the record of the House.

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