James Bannon (Fine Gael)

It is essential that this amendment should be inserted because reference is not made to health and safety expertise in the legislation. The Minister referred to health boards but they were abolished more than 12 months ago. Their successor, the HSE, is not mentioned. I plead with the Minister to take the amendment on board. It is not too much to ask him to accept it because it will allay the public's fears.

The Minister and I are politicians for a long time and we have experienced the anger that can be generated by proposals for incinerators in local communities. A few years ago a delegation of local authority representatives visited a number of European countries to examine incinerators. A large delegation visited an incinerator in Germany in the context of preparing the regional waste management plans but it closed three weeks later. That caused a great deal of hassle and the regional plans were not adopted at the time. The former Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Noel Dempsey, then abolished the waste management powers of local authorities.

However, the local authorities had genuine reasons not to adopt the plans, given that they provided for incineration. We had witnessed what happened in Germany. Health and safety issues resulted in the closure of that facility, which I visited at the time. We were told it was a state-of-the-art facility, which catered for the needs of the area but three weeks after we returned it was closed in a blaze of publicity, not only in Ireland but throughout Europe, on health and safety grounds. This amendment would instill confidence in people that an independent health expert could be called by the board. I would appreciate it if the Minister would take the amendment on board because many people will be angry if he does not.