Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Fitzpatrick. The port to which he refers is in County Down, Northern Ireland, and any proposed waste transfer station to be situated there would, as a consequence, be subject to the regulatory controls of that jurisdiction's national waste legislation. Decisions on planning applications for this proposed development would fall to Newry, Mourne and Down District Council. This proposal has been developed to allow black bin waste collected by the council to be subsequently diverted from landfill for processing and treatment. That will involve the removal of recyclable material from the waste with the remainder being shipped for recovery at waste-to-energy facilities abroad. A facility of this nature may require a waste management licence from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, NIEA. Such a licence would have specific conditions attached to it and the facility would be subject to periodic inspections by NIEA, which can also request the production of records concerning the quantity, nature, origin and destination of any waste being held at the site. The NIEA can request those records at any time.

There are well-established structures in existence that provide a forum to deal with a variety of cross-Border issues, including issues of waste management. The North-South Ministerial Council meets in the environmental sector to make decisions on common policies and approaches in a cross-Border context in areas such as environmental protection, pollution, water quality management and waste management and is an effective forum to address waste management issues of mutual concern. However, as the Deputy knows, that council is not currently constituted. It last met in November of 2016. I look forward to its being re-established in the not too distant future, hopefully within the coming weeks, at which stage it can be used to progress this issue.

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