Kieran Phelan (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Deputy McDaid, to the House.

The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, and his Department have played a major role in setting in motion a number of steps to deal with the waste management problem, which we have ignored for too long. As a nation, we simply do not seem to care what we do with our waste as long as it is not disposed of on our own doorstep. When one speaks to the person in the street, one will invariably be told what should not be done but rarely is a solution to the problem offered. My message today is that this problem concerns us all. Each citizen in this country must face the fact that waste management begins with him or her.

If we want to reverse some of the waste problems we currently face, we must hammer home the message that each individual has a responsibility when it comes to waste management. Everybody must help local authorities to tackle this issue. The current hierarchy of waste management is prevention, minimisation, reuse and recycling, energy recovery and, lastly, environmentally sustainable disposal of waste that cannot be prevented or recovered. That is the policy of the Department, which should be congratulated for its approach. However, it will be very difficult to ingrain this policy in the culture of the average Irish citizen. We have become too reliant on dumps and landfill but any attempt by the Government to bring about change is met with resistance at every opportunity. Unless we all accept responsibility for this problem, it will not be dealt with.