Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Gormley to the House and compliment him on a job well done to date. I am pleased that matters are going well. It has always been my view that the notion of the Green Party coming into Government with Fianna Fáil is a wake-up call for our party. We have our faults and failings on the issue of waste management and other environmental matters and the new coalition is pulling us in the right direction. It could have a positive impact politically on our party. There may be a few at grass roots level with a jaundiced view, but there are many others who believe it is probably a good thing.

Forgive me for being somewhat parochial but I have a some issues that weigh heavily. One issue is waste management. I live in a beautiful area of Ireland and I was born beside the shore of Bantry Bay. I do a little fishing as one of my pastimes and the litter and waste, including plastics and rubbish, that come onshore in beautiful places such as Ballylickey, Barleycove, Schull and Courtmacsharry is appalling. This is a problem for local authorities with a coastline. I imagine the same applies in County Kerry. It is particularly acute in the south west because the busiest shipping lanes in the world pass by there. The south west of Ireland also has problems with drugs importation, etc.

The Minister should urge local authorities in these coastal regions to take a more proactive approach to cleaning up the beaches. Litter comes in whether it is high or low water and there have been instances of harm to birds and damage to the environment. There have been many oil slicks in Bantry but I do not want to get into that. There is an ongoing problem with rubbish that primarily is not ours. I imagine it is carelessly dumped off boats. Bags of rubbish and sometimes much more drift onshore and stay there.

If we are to promote tourism and a healthy environment there must be change. I am not sure what the answers are. I was a member of my local authority in Cork for almost 20 years and, while not wishing to be disparaging towards it, the attitude appeared to be that it was not our waste or rubbish so we could stand aside and let someone else deal with it. The result has been that no one has dealt with it. There is a non-political group in west Cork which has done a lot of work in this area conducting research and taking photographs. I have seen the rubbish in little coves and inlets along Bantry Bay, Dunmanus Bay and Roaring Water Bay. I feel ashamed that we are not prepared to deal with it. Perhaps some initiative could be taken. While I do not want the Minister to contact the Cork county manager and say I said he was doing nothing, something must be done. There must be a programme for dealing with waste coming onshore.

On the positive side, the committee of the western division of Cork County Council, under an initiative from the now-retired chief administrative officer in Clonakilty, Mr. Jerome C. O'Sullivan, became the first in Cork if not in Ireland to introduce a pay-by-weight scheme. There was a political fuss at the time but the effect was a 60% reduction in two years in the amount of rubbish collected. Once the scheme hit the householder's pocket, there was greater awareness of the need to reuse, recycle, compost and segregate rubbish. I include myself in that. There was a time 12 or 15 years ago when I had three bins, but I confess I soon learned. The impact in the western division of Cork County Council was immense in a short space of time. When I joined the council in 1985, there were six landfill dumps in west Cork. Most are closed now and I believe there is only one left, mainly because we are a long way from a central area.

We must consider providing civic amenity centres. One was proposed by a very forward thinking assistant county manager of Cork County Council, west Cork division, John Deasy, who has now retired. He proposed having a civic amenity site in Bantry, my home town, approximately 12 years ago. There was a great hoo-ha that we were about to create a dump and following public meetings it was stopped. It was supposed to be the model for County Cork. Bantry is the only town of its size without a civic amenity site. Anybody with an old bed or fridge-freezer to dump must travel for miles to get rid of it. I have urged locally that such facilities should be provided in every town.

I laud the very important anti-litter awareness grant scheme. My generation needed to be dragged kicking and screaming when our pockets were hit in order to stand up and smell the roses and face the reality of having to pay to get rid of our rubbish. There is a young generation from national school upwards that must be educated on how to deal with plastics and protect the environment. When I was a teenager that issue did not arise. However, now there is awareness among young people who question what the world will be like when they grow up and for the next generation. We must tap into that awareness and promote it.

Individual households produce domestic waste. Thankfully we have bottle banks and can recycle plastics and paper. However, one of the main problems involves commercial retail and wholesale companies dealing with bulk waste like cartons. Supermarkets generate significant volumes of cardboard, plastics and other types of waste. Commercial entities, including large supermarket chains, should be taxed or forced to take a more realistic approach. There is a provision allowing them to pay into an educational programme for dealing with waste, which should be encouraged and controlled. There is no doubt it can be a success.

Clonakilty in west Cork won several awards. Dealing with litter in the town was key to its winning Tidy Towns awards and international gold medals of all descriptions. That town has a civic mindedness of top quality. Its inhabitants have a town of which they are very proud. It generates tourism and has achieved international recognition. The people in the town and its hinterland are conscious of littering and waste, which rubs off on others. We should congratulate Clonakilty on its success in the past ten or 15 years. Other towns should aspire to similar achievements. A town with a litter problem will not win a Tidy Towns award or an international gold medal, whether European or on the world stage. If it can be achieved in Clonakilty it can be achieved in other towns. Clonakilty is a medium-sized town with a population of approximately 5,500.

I wish to comment on what Senator O'Toole mentioned earlier. While it might be changing we have a mindset of "not in my backyard". The export of waste to China and India is a short-term cheap-shot measure that I do not advocate. There have been heated debates about the proposed incinerator in Ringaskiddy. I had mixed views on it and abstained when the council had a critical vote on the matter, in part because I lived 60 or 70 miles away from the proposed site. We cannot bury our heads in the sand anymore.

My home town and Castletownbere have plans to dredge the harbours to clear mercury and TBT from the silt. That is a very expensive way of dealing with this issue. I would like to know where the mercury is coming from. I always thought the mercury in my home town came from the local hospital. It cannot be taken out to sea as it is a lethal chemical.

In Castletownbere the silt that is contaminated is being skimmed off to a depth of 1 m or less. It is dried, mixed with concrete and exported to Germany as concrete blocks. Those two towns may be exceptions. However, we should consider how we can eliminate the contamination of harbours and ports by mercury. The dredging of the inner harbour in Bantry has been delayed for 20 years. When a seismographic study was carried out and found the contamination, the authorities ran away from the problem. The old way was to dredge the area and release the waste 20 or 30 miles from shore. That is not allowed anymore because it can do serious damage to marine life. Mercury is a lethal poison. While the Minister might not be aware of this parochial issue, perhaps he might look into it at some time to ascertain how we can deal with it in the future.