Cyprian Brady (Fianna Fail)

My own children come home and give out to me if I throw out a newspaper and they separate rubbish. That is a cultural change. If one had said five years ago that we would have wheelie bins in Dublin and people would be separating their waste automatically, one would have been laughed at. This is how the Bill balances enforcement with encouragement to comply with regulations.

I also welcome the enhancement of the role of the EPA. The agency is a body of which one only hears when there is a crisis. Nobody hears of the work it does on a day-to-day basis protecting individuals, companies, farmers and so on. The new powers, for instance, to revoke or suspend licences or require a landfill operator to levy charges are all enhancements of powers the agency already has – it may provide explicitly for court orders where waste activity is carried on other than in accordance with any requisite authorisation. The licensing of waste disposal is something that must be tackled in the immediate future.

The strengthening of the provisions of the Litter Pollution Act 1997 and the imposition of greater restrictions on advertising material in public places are to be welcomed. As politicians, we all experience at election time postering and fly-postering, which, particularly in Dublin city, are practised outside of election times by political parties and individuals. They stick up posters which may have no name or contact number and are left there for months on end. They rot and fall down but no action is taken. Even at election time, certain individuals and groups put up posters at night in order that there is no way of knowing who is responsible. Political parties are fined if they are a couple of weeks late in removing posters but no action is taken against the people concerned. This must be dealt with. I welcome this provision in the Bill.

There is a provision in the Bill dealing with transboundary environmental impact. This is a huge issue: everybody has been talking about major catastrophes for the last few weeks. We could very easily suffer the way Spain has suffered, given the amount of traffic in the Irish Sea. I welcome the Bill which I fully support. I congratulate the Minister and his Department.