Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are issues around policing the dumping of rubbish. It is my understanding that the local authorities and the community wardens have been asked to police the dumping of rubbish. The question I asked in my contribution was where the extra money the companies wanted to charge would go. If they are increasing costs and bringing in income of 200% to 300% more than they were previously for a service they have been providing for a number of years - I did not see any of them go out of business locally in Galway - where was that money going to go? Was it going straight into their bank accounts offshore? Was any of it coming back to the community? Why were local authorities being charged to employ staff to go out and police in areas where we are short of community wardens?

We are told there has been great investment in recycling centres, etc., something to which Deputy Coffey alluded, but in Casla, in south Connemara, we have been campaigning for a recycling centre for well over ten years. The county council has asked the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government constantly for money to provide that and it has been turned down by both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments in previous years. Communities are trying to do the right thing by reducing, reusing and recycling but the State has not supported them.

I understand the Green Party position but I call on it to reconsider the issue. We want to do what it has called for almost verbatim but we see that the private companies are ruling the roost. They are driving the agenda, not the State and not the Government. We need to turn that on its head, send them a strong message and rescind the statutory instrument. If the Minister wants to come back with an amended statutory instrument next week, he can do that. Fianna Fáil can then bring forward its motion. We should appoint, as we proposed previously, an independent commission to proof the measures, assess the impacts on carers and other groups such as those on low incomes, those in receipt of State benefits and those who suffer from ill health or disability, and make their findings known. Let us do it right. This is putting the cart before the horse. It is the private agenda ruling the roost again and we have to oppose that. We have a chance to do it in the Seanad tonight. We will not get this chance again. It only comes around once in a blue moon.

Another important point is that the recycled waste is not being recycled by many of these recycling companies; it is being burned. If individual citizens burned their bags at the back of the field they would be fined, and rightly so. We have to tackle this industry.