Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Leader will remember that I brought forward legislation on the effective use of CCTV to combat illegal dumping in our communities. Senator Wall brought forward similar legislation. I was very happy at the time that many of the recommendations in the Bill I brought forward were folded into the Circular Economy and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill brought through the Houses by the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and enacted. As part of this process it was agreed there would be engagement between the Data Protection Commissioner and local government agencies, the Local Government Management Agency and other organisations. All of this was supposed to have been done by last Christmas. Codes were to have been distributed to local authorities in order that they could effectively use CCTV and other technologies to track down those people dumping in our communities. There were problems in the past because of data protection concerns but this was to be the new regime. A framework was put in place by the legislation. The code was meant to have been drawn up.

Since then I have twice raised this issue as a Commencement matter. On both occasions, I got the exact same reply. There has not really been any progress. We are starting to see dumping again and I am concerned. Even though wonderful work is being done throughout the country by all of our Tidy Towns committees and community development associations, we still see the scourge of illegal dumping. It is not only in rural areas as it is also impacting on urban areas. I ask the Leader to raise with the Minister, Deputy Ryan, the question of why there has been a lack of progress in this area. I detect no urgency on the part of some of the civil servants in the Department. I also ask that we have a debate on how we can support the work of Tidy Towns committees throughout the country and how we can finally tackle the scourge of illegal dumping and littering throughout the country.