David Norris (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and express my good wishes to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, who I have just learnt is unwell. This debate is important because it concerns a crisis afflicting the globe. Underlying it is the explosion in prosperity and population throughout the globe. Since I graduated from Trinity College, and I am not as ancient as I might appear, the population of the planet has doubled, which is astonishing. Naturally, we generate more rubbish, as we do when we become more affluent. We have a significant job to do to educate people. I used to teach and am glad to be associated with An Taisce's green flag award for schools because it brings home to young people the necessity of treating the environment with respect, sorting out materials and recycling.

To digress to an allied area, I compliment the city authorities of Dublin on the way they maintain O'Connell Street. It is quite remarkable because we are a filthy race and it must be heartbreaking to have to continually clean that street. Apart from other environmental aspects, the street is one of the most significant public faces of this country for tourists. My one caveat, however is that the noise of the machines they use is unspeakable. Sometimes this vibration starts when they clean near my home, at 5.30 a.m. or 6 a.m. at weekends. Is it possible to have a more environmentally friendly machine doing the environmentally friendly task? There seems to be a conflict there. Why do they not also hose the streets down with recycled, non-potable water, as they do in Paris? I will not mention in too glorified detail the kind of materials that hit the pavement regularly every weekend in the inner city.

Many citizens demonstrate boorishness and an utter lack of consideration. People come regularly into my area in their motoring cars and unload black plastic sacks of refuse, apparently because they are too bloody mean to pay the bin tax. For people who are significantly poor, a bin tax may be an imposition. I, however, would be only too pleased to pay it if the refuse collection system were upgraded.

I and my neighbours regularly fill the green sacks, which are an excellent idea given the amount of paper that goes into them for recycling. Why do we not have other sacks, for plastics, tins and whatever else is possible? I know that more than paper alone goes into the green sacks but most people think of it as a place for papers. It is astonishing to see the amount of paper that one crusty old bachelor like me can generate. I fill the sack every two weeks. I am doing my best.

Although I live in the inner city I have a compost bin but I cannot claim credit for that. Ours is a very green house. The proprietor of the best flower shop in Dublin, Adonis Flowers in Patrick Street, Gerry, and his pal occupy my basement apartment. Gerry does my window boxes and all the recycling. When they move on, as they will soon, I will continue this process because I have begun to appreciate how important it is.

Senator Quinn raised on the Order of Business the amount of paper waste generated in this House but he was reticent because he mentioned only the fact that the Order of Business comes in a brown envelope. Would that was all. We all receive stacks of reports that we do not want or have time to read. Why not send them in electronic format or send an abstract with bullet points, on the basis of which we can decide whether to request the full report, maybe electronically? Why must we have a deluge of reports? Sometimes I get three or four copies of the same report from semi-State bodies. One arrives here, then a back-up in case I did not see it the first time, then two more at my home in North Great George's Street. It is maddening because they are too big to get in through the letter box and I receive a notice to call to the post office which I do only to discover it is the third copy of a report.

These are among the issues that face us as individuals. As a country, however, we face a serious situation, including fines from the European Union because we are not meeting our targets. By 2010 we have a good chance of being fined if we do not really press ahead, not just with education but also with implementation. The scale of the problem is indicated by the fact that if we are to meet our targets we must reduce landfill by 450,000 tonnes a year starting now. That is a significant challenge. Some years ago various Members, myself included, raised the issue of the unlicensed dumps, the cowboy operators around County Wicklow and how they could get away with this when there were not sufficient penalties against them. We must penalise these people.

As someone who loves the environment I naturally revolt against incineration but we must consider it. We do not need incinerators proliferated all over the place but we will need some degree of thermal treatment. I note that P.J. Rudden, a leading consultant on waste management, has stated it is absolutely necessary and that with it, Ireland can handle up to 1 million tonnes of waste per year, which would remove what the Environmental Protection Agency has described as the significant danger of fines from the EU. He went on to assert that thermal treatment is an inescapable and logical conclusion of the report from the Environmental Protection Agency.

I will turn to a paper from the Institute of Public Health that is concerned with the impact of hazardous waste on public health. In particular, it raises some questions in respect of breathing problems. It states:

Where no evidence can be found of a relationship between adverse health effects and proximity to incineration sites it is important to bear in mind this may mean there is no relationship or a relationship exists but may not be detectable using available methods and data sources. The fact that ill-health may occur infrequently or take years to appear makes it difficult to establish cause and effect. It is therefore imperative the impact on public health is adequately addressed.

My point is that this is pretty weak. It states there is either little or no evidence at present of a connection between incinerator emissions and such respiratory difficulties. While it is important that monitoring should continue, we cannot put a halt to the development of at least a couple of major incinerator sites, which must be carefully chosen, on the basis that although sufficient data cannot yet be found, that may be due to the lack of sufficiently sensitive instruments to so do. In the absence of such data, given the critical situation we face, we must consider the possibility of incineration although it may be politically unpopular. Apart from anything else, the continued use of landfill sites for hazardous waste in particular is more dangerous to the general community.

A culture has arisen in which large quantities of wrapping and rubbish are produced and I do not like it. I find it offensive, vulgar, awful, tedious and a nuisance and we should be educated against it. In addition, I refer to the commercially-driven notion of planned obsolescence in which things do not last. I recently was obliged to acquire a new washing machine. I had called out a plumber because its predecessor had developed a bit of a leak.