John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for reading that, but it did not answer even one of my questions. There are legitimate concerns. I outlined the number of official complaints made to the EPA. The Minister stated he did not sign off on this, but I asked him whether he was aware of the pending emergency. Will he consider the matter? The volume of concerns facing the people of County Wicklow is significant. Will the Minister intervene? A family have been forced out of their home and unable to return for more than a year. There are pending legal cases because of the difficulties at Ballynagran. There was a fire at the site in 2015. In correspondence, the CEO stated it was understood that the Drehid landfill site would be in a position to resume accepting waste from 1 January. However, there is no guarantee that the landfill site will be available come 1 January. Some 190,000 tonnes of waste are going into the landfill site.

There are major concerns. I asked the Minister a specific question, namely, whether he had been made aware of the pending emergency. Will he intervene? It is not good enough that County Wicklow is expected to deal with an emergency that has been flagged for months. This e-mail was sent out at 4.30 p.m., 4.45 p.m. or whatever time on a Friday and no public representatives were consulted, least of all the liaison committee that was put in place as part of the planning process. This issue has been foisted on an entire county. What has the Minister done? Is he abdicating his responsibility? If not, he should intervene personally. County Wicklow cannot become a dumping ground because of the State's failure to deal with this so-called emergency. That would be unacceptable.

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