Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

That is correct.

I thank Deputies who have contributed to this debate, particularly those who have demonstrated an understanding of the legal obligations which flow from legislation that has passed through the Oireachtas. Deputies on the Opposition benches always have the luxury of being able to make free-wheeling comments about issues, including this project now before our statutory physical planning and environmental licensing regimes. The Minister, Deputy Gormley, and I do not enjoy that luxury.

The Minister, Deputy Gormley, has made his personal position on incineration abundantly clear on many occasions. He did so last night and I am sure he will do so again in appropriate circumstances. He has, however, also kept faith with the responsibilities imposed on him by the office he now holds. Those responsibilities include acting within the law in regard to regulatory processes which are rightly independent of Government.

The Government cannot arbitrarily roll back processes which have commenced and which have a finite life leading to eventual decisions by the competent statutory authorities, in this case An Bord Pleanála and the Environmental Protection Agency. What the Government can do is seek to set the legal and policy context in which we can build on our national achievements in waste management while promoting new and more innovative approaches which are more logical and environmentally sustainable. As the Minister, Deputy Gormley, said earlier in this debate, we must think outside the box.

There are many examples of good ideas which were initially rejected but which eventually became Government policy. We must both examine the way we, as a society, approach the management of our waste and how we can do so in a more sustainable fashion. This includes looking beyond incineration to a society in which such technologies are no longer necessary. Even in the interim we can make much better use of non-incineration technologies to better mechanically and biologically manage our waste.

The current paradigm for waste management is set out in the regional waste management plans which are the statutory property of the local authorities. It would be entirely inappropriate for the Minister to interfere in this planning function. The Government's policy programme has identified the need to carry out a comprehensive review of the regional waste management plans. Such a review will better inform the Government as to any legislative or policy changes which may be necessary to better equip us to manage our waste in a more sustainable fashion, to motivate necessary societal and individual behavioural changes and to fully exploit all of the technologies available to us.

Before closing, I want to refute again any suggestion that Ministers now or in the past had any role in determining the size or location of any incinerator. Under present legal arrangements these are matters for local authorities or private sector initiatives. Neither had my Department any role in negotiating specific contractual arrangements between any public body and the private sector. The sole role of my Department in the Poolbeg project has been to ensure that matters were advanced in accordance with public procurement policy. Nor did my Department issue any direction to An Bord Pleanála specifically in relation to incineration, as mentioned yesterday by some Deputies.

The challenge is to encourage people to take responsibility. There are successes, some of which have been mentioned already, such as a national recycling rate of 35% which was only 9% less than ten years ago. Ireland is the world leader on the smoking ban. It also has the enormously successful plastic bag tax. We are eight years ahead of targets on several fronts.

There are considerable challenges ahead. One of them is to remediate landfill and we have the target of having a maximum of 10% in landfill in a short time. There have been enormous successes, as Deputies have stated, with bottle banks and civic amenity sites and the capital grants for the recycling centres. The principle of segregation is now widely accepted and the pay by use principle will have its own impact.

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