Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to address this important debate. I thank my colleague, Deputy O'Dea, for tabling this motion. He and I operate in side by side constituencies and we are equally disturbed by the proposals to put an incinerator in place that will impact negatively on the livelihoods of people in the region. We do not believe it is acceptable to our communities. Nor is it right from an environmental perspective.

As Deputy O'Dea and others have identified, the management of waste and the thinking around same have changed significantly in recent years. We are in a circular economy where we need to reduce the amount of waste that is coming into the overall waste management system. When new infrastructure is built, vast amounts of money are invested and that company and society are effectively locked into the processing of waste in what is now recognised as an outmoded system of waste management. What is really needed is more forward thinking waste management, for example, better use of the recycling process or better composting procedures. That requires education, Government policy and Government thinking. Unless we put all of that in place, we are not going to have a better approach to the management of our waste or environment. It is essential that the process under discussion be stopped. Government policy must give that direction.

Many in the House objected to the continuation of drilling for oil off the western seaboard. It took the Taoiseach in a panic at a UN meeting in the US to capitulate when the pressure came on from international concerns and NGOs. He did not listen to what was happening in the House. It might take the Taoiseach being out of the country and in the company of others for the light to dawn on him in respect of this issue. The sooner the Government comes to the realisation that locking ourselves into an investment in infrastructure that is past its sell-by date and no longer fit for purpose for residential communities across the State, the better. It would ensure that we did not have a continued diminution of people's quality of life in the area. Indeed, this is not just about them. As Deputy O'Dea and others have identified, the particles go high into the atmosphere. With the passage of time and rainfall in other regions, others must sustain the negative impacts on their health as well. We need to address this matter.

I wish to speak to the part of the motion that deals with quarrying. An interesting "Prime Time" programme the other night focused on unregulated quarries and local authorities' inability to deal with them. In some cases, local authorities were even contracting with them and purchasing aggregate from them. That is wrong and should not happen. What is happening not only damages the environment, but also the genuine, hard-working quarry owners who work and live by the standards, which are rightly difficult to meet. McGrath Quarries in my area meets all of the standards and works with local communities because it recognises that quarrying by its nature is not necessarily an easy business to conduct alongside where people live. McGrath Quarries does a hell of a good job. It works with the communities, tries to minimise the impact and lives by the standards. Why should it be disenfranchised because other quarries are effectively operating lawlessly? In Donegal, a quarry owner was dredging the riverbed and had the audacity to say in an interview that he was benefiting the environment. His quarry operates with impunity. That is wrong and needs to be tackled.

Unless we succeed in bringing these rogue operators to heel, what kind of message are we sending to the good operators in my area and elsewhere who spend money to meet all of the standards and who respect the environment and the communities in which they are based? We are sending out the wrong signal. It is incumbent on the Government to put in place appropriate standards, put a body of law behind them and put funding in place to enforce them. That must happen. Otherwise, we will be equivocating.

Today, I saw a leaflet of a Fine Gael councillor that could be mistaken for a Green Party leaflet with all of the green imagery it used. There is an element of greenwashing by the Government as it attempts to give the impression it is green friendly. It recognises the impact and negativity that are adding to the destruction of the environment. It should stop the greenwashing and attempting to take credit for something it is not committed to. It should show it is active by enforcing and enhancing the existing body of law to ensure standards are maintained and the environment is respected.

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