Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

I met Mr. Alex Attwood, MLA, in his capacity as Minister of the Environment in Northern Ireland at a North-South Ministerial Council plenary meeting on 10 June 2011 and at a meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council, environment sector, in Armagh on 1 July 2011. A further meeting of the council is scheduled for tomorrow, 21 October 2011, and will be attended by Mr. Attwood. I also had the pleasure of launching jointly with him the Irish recycled plastic waste arisings study, which was undertaken under the North-South market development programme when we both addressed the Environment Ireland 2011 conference in Dublin last month.

The North-South Ministerial Council was established under strand two of the Good Friday Agreement to develop consultation, co-operation and action within the island of Ireland on matters of mutual interest. Meeting in its environment sector format, discussions in the council have concentrated to date on waste management, including illegal dumping of waste from the South in Northern Ireland, implementation of the EU water framework directive and joint approaches to environmental research and monitoring. Arising from our positive meeting on 1 July 2011, Mr. Attwood and I are working to broaden this agenda in the areas of co-operation mandated under the Good Friday Agreement and I hope we will make good progress in this regard at an early stage.

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