Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Cullinane for raising this interesting point of debate. As the Senator knows there are various reasons and legacy issues associated with many contaminated lands. They might have been brownfield sites from industrial or manufacturing plants or just contaminated land. To reassure the Senator, other environmental legislation is already available through the powers of bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, and European directives where responsibility lies on the owners of land. Indeed the local authorities have substantial powers of enforcement, in terms of environmental legislation as well as the powers of CPO. To be fair, we have to be realistic in how we approach brownfield sites. As the Senator knows, we have some in Waterford, and the North Quays is a perfect example, where major infrastructure of a different era is located. It is costly to regenerate that site.

Local authorities have a role in terms of enforcement and planning and working with all of the stakeholders to turn those sites around. In Government we believe that if a site is contaminated, the owners are already liable for the remediation of that site and that in itself brings a large cost and affects the market value of the site. We recognise that contaminated sites are difficult sites already and by putting an additional levy on them, both the Government and I feel that it will not resolve the matter that we are trying to resolve. We need to give due recognition to that. For those reasons, we will oppose the amendment.