Results 621-640 of 10,035 for speaker:Martin Cullen

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: They require us to continue radical transformation of our waste management practices. This inevitably involves tackling difficult issues and making hard choices. It involves taking decisions, something which is not the Green Party's forte. Just as there are 40 shades of green, there are 40 shades of Green Party policy.

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: Many of them are sickly shades. The end result is a complete mish-mash, which means absolutely nothing to anybody, not even the Green Party Members opposite. Lacking in the courage and capacity to make difficult decisions, the Green Party's solution is to try to convince us all that decisions do not need to be made in the first place. Because they cannot put forward a credible policy of their...

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: It would have us believe that we can simply wish our waste away. Deputy Sargent, the Dáil's equivalent of Paul Daniels, can just click his fingers and utter the magic words "zero waste" and our waste disappears.

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: The use of the word "zero" in the context of Green Party waste policy is certainly appropriate — zero marks for zero credibility.

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: Yes, every detail, and it did not take me long. It will not take the children in school long to read it either. In the real world, where I live and where the electorate expects the Government to live, things are different. We are following a policy approach proven to be effective by the best waste managers in Europe.

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: This means that in the first place we prevent, re-use and recycle as much of our waste as we can.

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: Then, in line with best European practice, the policy is that we should recover energy from waste through the use of thermal treatment technologies, ensuring that the amount of waste we ultimately consign to landfill — the least environmentally friendly approach — is kept to an absolute minimum. At the mention of thermal treatment the Green Party members turn hysterical. Yet their Green...

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: This Government's clear policy approach to waste management is yielding results. Next week I will outline details of the progress made on the implementation of local authority waste management plans. While there is further work to do, substantial progress has already been made and is continuing. I thank the people for this.

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: The Deputy should save it for impressing his own party colleagues, because he is not impressing anyone in the House with that nonsense.

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: This has been supported by a major package of Government funding. I have allocated €22 million in the past 18 months to support the delivery of more than 70 local authority recycling projects. This funding has been provided courtesy of the environment fund, which is financed by the proceeds of the plastic bags and landfill levies. This is an imaginative use of policy instruments by the...

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: We are working effectively with various sectors of business to secure major advances in the recovery of particular waste streams. The EPA reported last year that Ireland achieved its 25% target for the recovery of packaging waste in 2001 and Repak indicates that good progress continues to be made towards the 50% target for 2005. We will achieve this. The recovery of construction and...

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: I know the Deputy cannot stomach it, but he should listen.

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: My focus has been on actions like the strengthening of the enforcement provisions and penalties, which I provided for in the Protection of the Environment Act 2003 and the provision of €7 million to support local authorities in delivering on the first year of a major five-year waste enforcement programme, with a commitment of further funding in later years. I am resolutely determined to...

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: I know the Deputy would like to cut down the rain forest to provide the paper for such a trail. That is typically consistent Green Party policy — half a rain forest to provide a paper trail.

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: For God's sake, give me a break.

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: The Deputies should sit down and listen. Instead, of course, the Green Party seeks to revisit, in an unhelpful way, the debate which we had in this House just over a month ago on the introduction of electronic voting and counting. That debate was not about seeking safeguards for electronic voting.

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: It was not about security.

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: It was not about the integrity of the voting process.

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: It was purely about political point-scoring and it was damaging to the credibility of politics. This is clearly demonstrated by the public statements of the Opposition parties that they are in favour of electronic voting. Indeed, some have gone further and said they are in favour of Internet voting. That element of the motion before the House tonight, referring to the electoral process, is in...

Confidence in the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government: Motion. (30 Mar 2004)

Martin Cullen: Did Deputy Sargent ask the electorate in Dublin North for their views after the 2002 general election? No, but my Department did, and 87% of voters surveyed indicated that they preferred the electronic voting system to the paper ballot.