John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree with a lot of what the Minister of State says and absolutely agree that the offenders should be named and shamed. From what local authorities tell me, however, securing prosecutions in court is difficult. The Minister of State might come back in due course and indicate how many prosecutions were secured last year, but the reality is that many people are never brought to court. That is the underlying issue. From the householder's point of view, I note that we used to have a system under which large items were collected from houses once a year or every second year. That service is no longer available from many local authorities. Funding should be made available to local authorities to provide it. Large-scale dumping often consists of beds, sofas and other large items. Rather than paying for the clean-up afterwards, there should be a pro-active programme, as part of which local authorities would provide that service.

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