Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

That means that we are going to continue to generate the same amount of black bin refuse. I am asking where in Ireland we should put it. Should it be put in Galway, Mayo, Laois or Offaly? We have four landfills at the moment. There is only enough capacity by 2020 for ten months of the year. Those are the facts.

It is disingenuous to say that this is the only thing the Government has done on the matter. The first step that I took as Minister was to deal with the issue of brown waste. Families can make a significant saving. Larger families in particular have a greater potential to save. That is why we launched that campaign in March, and on top of that, after Easter when the kids went back to school we had a specific campaign targeting both brown and green waste, encouraging people to use the recycling bins, and targeting children on that issue to bring that message home. That all happened before we got to this stage. People tend to brush that under the carpet.

I can understand the argument made by some people that private is bad, commercial is bad, and public is good so that is the only way to go. Senator Ó Clochartaigh was making the point that in rural areas bin collection is not good. He is right. However, I remember, as does Senator Leyden, when Mr. Gerry Woods of Wheel-a-Bin Service provided the first service in Galway and Roscommon for rural areas. It was not the local authority, which could not have cared less about people outside the major urban centres. It was a private operator that came in. He has left that business and Barna Waste has taken over. Correct me if I am wrong, but for the last decade there has not been an increase in bin charges from Wheel-a-Bin and now Barna Waste. It has said that because people were recycling it was able to make savings. It has rolled out the blue bins, which are the equivalent of the green bins in the rest of the country. The brown bins have now been rolled out in the urban areas, and that has allowed them to reduce the amount of residual waste that is being generated.