Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In the few minutes I have I will try to deal with a few quick points. Senator Wall is to be highly commended for getting this debate going. My colleague, Senator Byrne, has done a lot of work in this area and the Minister of State has a huge interest it. With the Government's plan going forward, this Bill and all of us working together, we can make this happen and make it work.

We should move away from saying this is a huge problem with individuals. Senator Cassells put his finger on it. There are a number of illegal operators who are doing this job cheaply by going into estates and loading up people's rubbish. If illegal dumping happens in an estate or a town, at least people will see it but out in a rural area it can be there for months. Then someone will say that he or she was down such a road today and when one goes over there are trailer loads of rubbish. It is because of illegal operators. The politicians, the Garda and the local authorities know that the people doing this are involved in other undesirable activities. They need to be targeted in any legislation, whether it comes from the Government, Senator Wall or anyone else here. Let us not be afraid to see that here today. There are people in local authorities, Tidy Towns people and young people in our schools who are so conscious of our environment and of litter. They are brilliant. In many circumstances councillors go out onto the scene and clean up the area with council staff. We have done it ourselves. It is about time we target the real villains here.

I had a situation in my own area where a small group of people from Longford town were illegally transferring rubbish across the Roscommon border and dumping it in a bog area. I was physically threatened by some of these people about ten years ago. My kids, who were very young at the time, begged me not to do anything because I would be hurt or something would happen to the house. These people were physically threatening people and I reluctantly moved away from the issue. Shamefully, I did not tell my local authority or report them because I was putting my family first. In this legislation, let us target these people and get them out of the way for what they are doing. We must deal with them very sharply because they need to be dealt with.