John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

Given the economies of scale, it makes sense to co-operate with our colleagues in Northern Ireland and to have a glass recycling facility on any part of the island. The Deputy is correct that we also need to develop a facility for paper and cardboard and a proposal has been made. However, we must reach an agreement with our colleagues in Northern Ireland because this was to be done on an all-island basis.

The Deputy referred to the programme overview. The €13 million which I propose to spend is for a multi-annual programme and it will be drawn down by RPS Group on behalf of the market development group. It includes research and development, commercial trials, development of technical standards and the production of various marketing and educational awareness materials. The main focus of the programme will be an organics programme. We have rolled out the brown bins and I have sent a circular to all the local authorities. Organic waste recycling is working very well and it is probably the most important aspect because in terms of complying with our landfill directive commitments, we must remove the biological component from landfill.

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