Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. Many of the measures are long overdue. In general, Sinn Féin will support the Bill. We will engage and bring forward amendments, where appropriate, on Committee Stage. The Bill will have far-reaching consequences and a much greater effect than the blunt instrument of carbon taxes the Government is heaping on ordinary workers and families. On 1 May, just over one month from now, the Government will add fuel to the fire and punish those who cannot afford to change their behaviour in the context of climate change mitigation. Many of my constituents would love to install solar panels and other renewable technology but they simply cannot afford it.

The Bill provides for councils to use CCTV to try to prevent illegal dumping, with a code of practice for the use of CCTV to be drawn up. It will also allow councils to use drones and other mobile recording devices to try to prevent illegal dumping. It is important that the protection is extended to community CCTV, which is currently in legal limbo. Every summer in particular, the roadsides of rural counties Kildare and Laois become a night-time dumping ground. That is partly a result of this Government and the previous one abdicating their responsibilities and allowing, in effect, the privatisation of domestic waste collection services. We need to bring domestic waste services back into public responsibility. Councils are struggling to provide mattress recycling days in some municipal districts and they must be properly resourced. All Members have seen the video of mattress dumping in rural County Offaly. It is only the tip of the iceberg in the context of what is going on in Kildare.

Some people would say that is no wonder when the Department of Defence is getting away scot free with dumping God knows what while filling in the hollow next to Donnelly's Hollow on the Curragh. There was a cover-up that day and there have been more since. In a further waste of taxpayers' money, the Department gave Kildare County Council a choice between mediation and taking the Department of Defence to court. The taxpayer was left with a mediation bill of more than €22,000 at the end of the process, as well as a veil of secrecy that nobody, not even the Minister, will lift.

The Bill will not facilitate the introduction of a deposit and return scheme which the Minister of State knows is long overdue. Neither does it introduce the long-promised feed-in tariff to allow households and businesses sell electricity back to the grid. We are told that, like Christmas, they are coming.

The Government needs to act on these vital measures. Time is running out for the planet and it is definitely running out for the Government if it does not do something soon.

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