Litter Pollution and Water Quality: Statements 4th April, 2000 Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government (Mr. D. Wallace): I am pleased to have the opportunity to address the House on the environmental policies being pursued in my Department, particularly those policies in relation to litter pollution, water quality and the management of waste. Our litter pollution problem is a national scandal and is totally unacceptable. I have made litter eradication a priority and I am committed to taking every possible step to ensure that we eliminate the litter problem. To this end, the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, and I have been pursuing a programme of anti-litter initiatives, including the following. First, we increased the on-the-spot fine for alleged offences under the Litter Pollution Act, 1997, from £25 to £50, with effect from 3 January last. Second, almost £1 million has been allocated to local authorities for anti-litter initiatives in the past three years - a similar grant scheme will operate this year. Third, we have co-funded the An Taisce led National Spring Clean 2000 campaign, which was formally launched yesterday and will run for the entire month of April. Fourth, a national litter pollution monitoring system has been developed to monitor and assess local authority litter management and enforcement action and to advise on litter management planning at national level. The system will become fully operational over the coming months. Fifth, a national anti-litter forum has been established to promote greater sectoral involvement, in particular on the part of the business and commercial sectors, in anti-litter action. The forum is reviewing the current actions targeting litter pollution and developing a programme of measures to enhance and extend those responses. In addition to the programme of specific anti-litter measures that I have outlined, last December the Minister and I also announced details of a new, integrated national awareness campaign which encourages individual action and shared responsibility towards the environment. The campaign, entitled The Environment, It's Easy to Make a Difference, is a major public information initiative which will continue during the course of this year. It will address key environmental themes, including litter and waste, as well as water quality, water conservation, air quality and climate change. Primary responsibility for tackling litter pollution rests with local authorities. If we are to achieve the vision of a litter free Ireland we aspire to it is vital that local authorities take the strongest possible action to curb litter. I am especially keen that local authorities take the lead role at local level by exercising to the full their powers and duties under the Litter Pollution Act. I am satisfied that many authorities are using the extended powers now available to them to take a more proactive approach. Figures for the first half of 1999, the latest available, show that almost 300 litter wardens were employed, nearly 8,300 on-the-spot fines were issued, over 850 prosecutions were taken and over 350 convictions secured. These figures represent a significant improvement over earlier periods. Full details are in the Oireachtas Library. I am concerned, however, that the general improvement in local authority performance should be continued and extended to cover all authorities. I have written recently to all local authorities, both elected members and managers, expressing our concern to see more urgent anti-litter action at local level and enlisting support for the programme of anti-litter measures which I have outlined. The House can be assured that we will continue to work actively with local authorities and the various sectors to realise our vision of a litter free Ireland. We have all been aware for some time of the acute water quality problems affecting privately sourced group water schemes which provide drinking water supplies to 50,000 rural households. The Minister, Deputy Dempsey, has never believed in playing down the extent of these problems. Neither does he underestimate the level of resources needed to resolve them. The national development plan provides for a record £420 million for rural water, an average of £60 million per annum over the seven years. Most of this is earmarked for group water schemes. This compares very favourably with the £8 million spent on such schemes in 1996. On 27 March the Minister announced a radical revamp of the grant and subsidy schemes which support the group sector. This, the most significant news for group schemes in 40 years, will, for the first time, provide 100% funding for water disinfection and filtration equipment on privately sourced schemes. This will enable groups to provide state-of-the-art equipment to treat water to the standards set out in the drinking water regulations, prior to distribution to consumers. Until now group schemes did not have the financial resources to provide such facilities They now have no excuse for not confronting and solving the quality problem once and for all. In addition to the provision of water treatment facilities, many group water schemes will also require upgrading works on the distribution network and reservoirs. The current 75% grant, which has an upper limit of £1,600 per house, is being greatly increased. Grant aid, at up to 85% of cost, subject to a maximum cost of £6,000 per house, will now be provided for such work. This generous level of capital grant will also apply to new schemes and extensions to existing schemes. This will enable schemes which are not financially viable at present to progress to construction. In addition to the new grants for treatment equipment, groups which provide and operate such facilities will be rewarded through a special extra subsidy of £75 per house per annum. This extra subsidy payment is conditional on participation in a quality assurance scheme to be introduced by the national federation of group water schemes, with the Minister's backing. The standard rate of subsidy towards operational cost will also be increased by £5 per house. For those households which cannot avail of a group water scheme or local authority water supply, the conditions attaching to further grant assistance are being eased. The waiting period from the completion of the house or the date of a previous grant has been reduced from ten to seven years. Last November I changed the drinking water regulations to make group scheme operators responsible for upgrading quality deficient supplies. I will very shortly make further regulations to apply more specific and stringent requirements to suppliers, public and private, of drinking water to secure compliance with prescribed quality standards. The water quality of our rivers and lakes is generally good, although slight to moderate pollution has been increasing in rivers. Since 1997 my Department has been pursuing a national strategy to promote water quality management in rivers and lakes, using river catchments as the basic unit. The primary focus of this strategy is to combat eutrophication arising from excess inputs of phosphorous from all sources. Our catchment based strategy is underpinned by the Local Government (Water Pollution) Act, 1977, (Water Quality Standards for Phosphorous) Regulations, 1998, which were made in July 1998. The regulations set clear targets for reducing phosphorous levels in rivers and lakes by the end of 2007. The Minister, Deputy Dempsey, and I announced the signing of a voluntary agreement with the Irish Detergents and Allied Products Association in December 1999. This agreement will result in the elimination of some 90% of the phosphorus load from domestic laundry detergents within two years. The IDAPA is to be commended on the significant contribution this will make to national and local efforts to combat eutrophication. Major catchment-based initiatives in respect of Loughs Derg, Ree and Leane and the rivers Suir, Boyne and Liffey are under way. Important initiatives are also under way in respect of Loughs Conn, Mask and Corrib. The objective for the short to medium term is to have catchment-based projects established in relation to all inland and coastal waters. The main emphasis in the past has been on rivers and lakes. Projects are now being extended to include groundwaters and coastal waters within catchments. The catchment-based strategy is being supported by a major programme of investment in sewerage infrastructure facilities throughout the country which will be implemented in the context of the provision in the National Development Plan, 2000-2006, of £3,000 million for water and waste water infrastructure and rural water. This programme places particular emphasis on the provision of phosphorus reduction facilities where a need for these facilities is identified. The implementation of the proposed water framework directive will require the identification of river basin districts which are to form the basis for integrated water management. The development of a water management plan for each river basin district will require the participation and co-operation of the various agencies which have relevant statutory functions, such as local authorities, regional fisheries boards, the Environmental Protection Agency, and by sectoral interest groups, including farmers, anglers and environmental groups. The proposed directive requires that river basins which cross national frontiers must be assigned to an international river basin district. This will require joint action with relevant authorities in Northern Ireland in relation to cross-Border catchments. Much valuable work has already been done in relation to the Erne and the Foyle catchments. To date, the primary focus in relation to the modernisation of waste management has been the development and improvement of our waste management planning system as a basis for radical improvements in waste management practice and infrastructure, and the implementation of an effective and comprehensive waste licensing and permitting system which ensures that waste recovery and disposal activities comply with high standards of environmental protection. This work has been underpinned by clear policy direction, in particular the 1998 policy statement on waste management, Changing Our Ways. The 1996 Waste Management Act recognises that meaningful and comprehensive waste management planning is a key prerequisite to improved waste management performance and much effort has been devoted at national, regional and local level to delivering effective results in this regard. Under Part II of the Act, local authorities are required to make waste management plans in respect of their functional areas and the Environmental Protection Agency is required to make a national hazardous waste management plan. Reflecting the waste hierarchy, the statutory objective of these plans is to prevent or minimise the production and harmful nature of waste; encourage and support the recovery of waste; ensure that such waste as cannot be prevented or recovered is safely disposed of; and address the need to give effect to the "polluter pays" principle in relation to waste disposal. Detailed requirements in relation to the preparation and content of local authority waste management plans were set out in the Waste Management (Planning) Regulations, 1997. From the outset local authorities were encouraged by my Department to adopt a regional approach to this planning process with a view to the more efficient provision of services and infrastructure, and to carry out preliminary waste management strategy studies to provide a context for evaluating available options and for identifying the measures, or combination of measures, most likely to optimise waste management. The response of local authorities has been very positive. Some 32 authorities were involved in detailed regional waste management strategy studies, or are otherwise committed to making regional waste management plans. Grant assistance of over £1.5 million has been allocated under the EU-funded Operational Programme for Environmental Services, 1994-99, in respect of a number of these strategy studies. A total of 11 local authorities have formally adopted waste management plans, seven are expected to have adopted plans before the end of this month and the remaining 16 local authorities are expected to have adopted plans before the end of May this year. These plans provide for practical measures to minimise municipal and industrial waste generation, as well as the development of improved waste services and an integrated waste management infrastructure to meet our waste recovery targets. Among other things, they provide for the segregation at source and separate collection of recyclable and organic materials in urban areas, extended networks of "bring" facilities for recyclable materials in rural areas, more civic amenity sites, waste transfer stations and materials recovery facilities. They also provide for the development of centralised biological and thermal treatment facilities, capacity for recycling of construction and demolition waste, involving fixed and mobile plant, and residual landfill. The Government will directly support the delivery of improved waste management services and infrastructure. Some £650 million is earmarked for capital investment in the development of waste management infrastructure under the National Development Plan 2000-2006. Of this, £100 million in Exchequer and EU funding will be provided to support the development of requisite waste recovery infrastructure over the life of the plan. The October 1998 policy statement on waste management, Changing Our Ways, is addressed chiefly to local authorities and is intended to provide a national policy framework for the adoption and implementation by local authorities of strategic waste management plans under which national objectives and targets will be attained. It outlines the Government's policy objectives on waste management and suggests some key issues and considerations which must be addressed in order to achieve these objectives. In particular, it focuses on the need to give clear and practical expression to the requirements of the waste hierarchy by developing and pursuing integrated solutions which combine progressive policies with a sustainable and cost effective waste infrastructure. The policy statement strongly endorsed meaningful strategic planning on a regionalised basis and a dramatic reduction in reliance on landfill in favour of an integrated waste management approach which utilises a range of waste treatment options to deliver effective and efficient waste services and ambitious recycling and recovery targets. It also endorsed greater participation by the private sector in the provision of waste management services, a more effective and equitable system of waste charging which incentivises waste minimisation and recovery, greater utilisation of legislative instruments extending the scope of producer responsibility initiatives and the mobilisation of public support and participation. It is our intention further to expand upon the policy issues and guidance outlined in Changing Our Ways with the publication this year of another policy statement focusing on recycling and waste recovery generally. This policy document will address the factors and practical considerations relevant to the achievement of Government policy objectives and targets in this area. A number of relevant initiatives are already in place or in development and we are determined that the systematic approach being taken successfully regarding strategic waste planning will also be pursued in the whole area of waste recovery and recycling. The new policy statement will provide firm leadership in this area and will outline the scope of measures which will be undertaken in the interests of a sustained expansion in recycling performance. New waste management facilities are generally unwelcome to the public and invariably generate vigorous local opposition. In part, this is a legacy of past poor performance, particularly relating to municipal waste landfills, which were perceived by the public to be a source of nuisance and environmental pollution and were not subject to external regulation. It is essential that the public has confidence that waste activities, which can have significant potential for environmental impact, are subject to rigorous and independent environmental control. Accordingly, Part IV of the Waste Management Act, 1996, provides for a stringent system of integrated waste licensing by the EPA in respect of all significant waste recovery and disposal activities. This is intended to ensure that high environmental standards apply to the establishment, management, operation, closure and after-care of licensable waste facilities. Licensing obligations were imposed on a phased basis from May 1997 and applied universally from 1 October 1999. Regulations have also been introduced, providing for the granting of waste permits by local authorities in respect of specified waste recovery and disposable activities that do not warrant integrated licensing by the EPA. As can be seen, my Department is actively pursuing a vigorous strategy of environmental improvement and is providing an excellent framework within which improvements can be achieved. The Government is making the resources available which are necessary to achieve our objectives.   Mr. Coogan: I propose to share my time with Senator Costello.   An Cathaoirleach: Is that agreed? Agreed.   Mr. Coogan: This debate was requested by all groups, the Independent group, Fianna Fáil, the Progressive Democrats - Senator Quill was very vociferous on this matter - and my group. Senator Quill and I requested the debate, but I asked that the debate be extended to take in other environmental matters such as landfill sites, gasification and incineration, issues which are vitally important to the public and to local authorities. We can see the resistance to some of these matters and that is why we sought an open debate to discuss the dangers involved, but the Minister of State has taken the opportunity to pat himself on the back for a second time because of an announcement about water quality controls. This is a misuse of the House and I will return to it later if I can. There have been a number of changes in environmental protection measures. I welcome the increase in fines last January from £25 to £50 and I look forward to an increase in the number of people charged by litter wardens. A substantial number of people has been charged, but it is not proportionate to the amount of litter, which is increasing every year. It should increase with the amount of litter and that is not happening. There is no point in having a law unless it is effective and there is no point in having fines unless they are imposed. I recognise that one must catch a person first, and most litter is dropped unseen and sometimes deliberately. However, there is a difference between littering deliberately and littering unconsciously. In order to stop litter, we must internalise the rules and get people to believe that there should not be litter. We should not have to depend on fines or other regulations; people should believe themselves that they should not litter. To do this the rules must be internalised and we must get people to accept that early. It is almost like Breaking the Cycle in education. Children learn from their parents and though one can introduce them to anti-litter campaigns in school, if they see their parents throw away litter they feel it is fine and the internalisation is lost. Deliberate spreading of litter is a different matter. I am not talking about papers or scrapped cars, although there is a tendency among people, if their cars are too old and they cannot get the £1,000 transfer fee, to hump their cars into a hedge somewhere to rust. I have raised this with the local authority in my area because these cars are eyesores for us and for tourists. There is a phenomenon in larger cities called corporate cars where a number of young people buy a car that is about to be scrapped, run it into every wall they can hit and then turn it up a cul-de-sac and set fire to it. That happened in the little village in which I live. We have great pride in our village, but a car was burnt out by the pier there. I reported this to the local authority and two days later it was gone, but unfortunately it had gone into the lake. That is a deliberate form of littering. Another deliberate form of littering takes place where landfill prices are increased. There are those who are so mean they refuse to pay those fees and prefer to drive a mile or two outside the city limits and dump their rubbish over or into a hedge. Such dumping is speckled throughout parts of this country. I pass through places frequently which almost seem to be collection points. If one person dumps a bag of rubbish, someone else thinks it is a dump site and follows suit. In the past it was possible to catch the offenders by opening the rubbish bags and finding a letter or an unpaid refuse charge bill - which I once found - which would allow them to be traced. However, people are becoming too cute - they burn their letters at home and dump the rest of their rubbish. This is the type of deliberate littering which I find abhorrent. While it is difficult to control such littering, it is possible to control the person who merely drops a piece of paper on the street. One of the things which sticks in my craw and also to the sole of my shoe is chewing gum. I abhor the black stains it leaves on footpaths and carpets. Chewing gum is dragged into shops on people's shoes and shopkeepers are extremely annoyed at having to replace their carpets because of gum stains. I do not know whether chewing gum has any beneficial dental or digestive effects but, as far as I can see, it is merely a nervous habit. Some countries, of which Singapore is one, ban the sale of chewing gum. I would support any move in that direction which the Minister might take here. From an economic point of view, a great deal of money is made from the production and sale of chewing gum. We are all familiar with fast food debris. How does one make the producers or outlet owners responsible? One could ask them to place litter bins outside their premises. Many of them do this, using the bins as an opportunity to advertise their services. However, people eat fast food as they walk along the street. If they get a taxi, they may leave their rubbish in the taxi or throw it on the ground when they reach their destination. Should an extra charge be levied on the shop owners to make them clean up the rubbish or should we ensure that the material used in the containers will degrade rapidly? Supermarket shopping bags also pose problems. I recently saw a leaflet from Centra which advocated that people should re-use their bags and I compliment the company on that. Unfortunately, I found the leaflet on the ground. If people are working outdoors in strong winds, it is possible that plastic bags or coverings for bales of hay blow away and get caught on hedges. Following periods of high winds, one sees white and black plastic caught on hedges throughout the country, which is often very difficult to remove. Work is ongoing in the US and, I understand, in Ireland on the production of biodegradable plastic bags. I understand that when such bags are buried in a landfill site, they disintegrate when the temperature reaches a certain level. If it were to prove possible to produce biodegradable bags for shopping and other purposes, we should encourage and grant aid the research. People should be made aware of the possibilities which exist. I understand that the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science with responsibility for science and technology is aware of this product. Local authorities hold debates on litter three or four times a year. The Minister of State was involved in the launch of a very worthwhile spring campaign. Unfortunately, these campaigns occur only once or twice a year and the impetus is often lost. We must constantly highlight the need for cleanliness on our streets. It is a reflection of our national identity in the same way as is how we dress and speak. I also requested a debate on incineration and recycling. The Minister mentioned waste management policies, including Changing Our Ways, which deals with some of these issues. As a member of the local authority in my area, I have attended numerous meetings addressed by waste experts, one of whom said that the best definition of waste he had ever heard was a busload of waste consultants going over a cliff with two empty seats. Following the meeting, I agreed with him because I did not know how to feel about incineration, particularly the measurement of dioxins. So many contradictory statements have been made by professionals that we wonder whether we should support or oppose incineration.   Miss Quill: There is no leadership.

Mr. Coogan: That is why I initially requested that incineration be debated with litter. It would be worthwhile for the House to debate the dangers of gasification and incineration, what amount of mercury is involved, whether it can be contained, do we need it and are there other alternatives such as smaller landfills? These issues are of vital importance. However, it is appropriate that we discuss litter today in tandem with the launch of the National Spring Clean 2000 campaign. I compliment the Minister on the initiatives which have been taken, including the £1 million given to local authorities for anti-litter initiatives in the past three years, which I am glad will be continued this year, the funding given to An Taisce and the development of a national litter and pollution monitoring scheme. However, we must start with education and realise that it should be regarded as natural not to throw litter. Some years ago I was in Vienna and the person with me dropped a cigarette butt and stood on it, which we would almost consider as not being litter. Someone came over and asked my companion if they would mind picking it up. If I said that to someone in Ireland, I would be afraid I would be found as litter on the streets as well. This illustrates the difference in the nature of people who believe cleanliness on their streets is a reflection of their national identity. The reference to water pollution gave the Government an opportunity to clap itself on the back for the additional funding it has given. About a year and a half ago I brought the attention of the Minister of State to a report by Environment Watch Ireland regarding a complaint to the EU about the EPA and the monitoring of water quality in Ireland. It pointed out a number of loopholes in the amount of measurements which were taken, the way in which this was done, what was being measured and the time lapse between taking samples and their measurement. It also stated that many local authorities were not fully and continuously monitoring water and were not getting the right results because of poor sampling and bad laboratory practice. I asked at the time if the Minister would tell me whether this would change. However, it appears that the EU regulations will ensure it changes. I have a list of group schemes, from Clones to Galway to Wicklow, which demonstrates the degree of contamination in our rivers and water supply. I hope these new regulations and the money being pumped in will ensure a reduction in eutrophication in our rivers. It is obvious that pollution is increasing in rivers all the time no matter what is done to arrest it. Much eutrophication is caused by waste from farms, and the decision to grasp the nettle and put the blame squarely where it belongs is in the hands of the Government. It should say straight out what the cause is and request that farmers carry out the necessary works. Not being a technical person, I do not know about concrete, but I have been told that one reason for pollution relates to the nature of sewage pits, that over time concrete deteriorates and waste starts to leak into the water supply. Perhaps systems which have been in place for over 20 years should be renewed. We should start looking at those to see whether there is leakage and whether it is going into rivers. We talk about the polluter paying. That means we have to go back to the source, grasp the nettle and not be afraid to tell people that if they cause pollution they have to rectify it or we will rectify it and they will have to pay for it. I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. I thank the Leader of the House for allowing the debate. I ask that the Minister return so that we can have the other half of the debate which the House requested.   Mr. Costello: I thank Senator Coogan for his generosity in sharing his time so that I can take part in the debate at this stage. I too welcome the Minister of State to the House. However, I am disappointed with his contribution. It is terrible that a Minister should begin his contribution to a debate by saying that our litter pollution problem is a national scandal. It is totally unacceptable that any Minister should have to admit that his area of responsibility is a national scandal. It is an admission of failure, an admission that measures proposed to date have not been implemented. How can we accept that the recommendations mentioned here will be effective when what has gone before has not been effective? I note also the total absence in the Minister's contribution of any meaningful timescale for the eradication of litter. Any policy that does not include a timescale or effective monitoring of its implementation is doomed to failure. If there is no leadership or direction, the Minister might as well be talking to the air, because nothing will happen. My immediate reaction to the Minister's contribution is one of disappointment, particularly when one considers just how serious is the situation. Senator Coogan has been raising this issue on the Order of Business regularly and Senator Quill has been raising from the Government benches almost weekly the need to deal with the matter, the urgency of it, the fact that it is a national scandal and the apparent lack of any meaningful initiative to deal with it. Instead of getting better, the situation appears to be getting worse. Dublin, as the capital city, is disgraceful in terms of litter. Things have gone from bad to worse. There are posters all over Dublin with the message "Welcome to Dublin, excuse the litter", put up by an anti-litter campaigning organisation, because litter in Dublin is so bad. The countryside is bad enough too. Only recently we debated the Shannon River Council Bill, the degree to which the Shannon has become polluted over the years and the sense of urgency that is felt by so many people in the west and people who use the river that pollution entering our main river should be dealt with. Available figures suggest that this year almost 10,000 cars, some of which were involved in joyriding, have appeared as scrap throughout the country. That is an incredible number of damaged and useless scrap vehicles littering the countryside and the capital city. Under the new national car test, every car registered in 1992 or earlier must be tested and many owners are simply disposing of their cars without consideration for where they will be put and the effect they will have. None of the local authorities has made provision for accepting scrapped cars. They collect them after they have been abandoned, burned or used for joyriding, but there is no initiative to deal with them initially. Local authorities have no mechanism for collecting fridges and batteries. Indeed, the one major recycling measure in Dublin, Kerbside, which was undertaken in conjunction with Dublin Corporation, has been discontinued because, believe it or not, it was inefficient. Nothing has been put in its place. People, who are genuinely interested in sorting their waste and putting it aside for collection find that there is no mechanism to collect or dispose of it. My fear is that the situation is going from bad to worse. There are plastics and beer tins all over the place. Chewing gum, to which Senator Coogan referred, is a particular problem. The pavement on Henry Street, which had been repaved this year as part of the integrated area plan for O'Connell Street and adjacent streets, is particularly susceptible to chewing gum and looks very ugly. The situation is dire, as is the national attitude. I am afraid the Government is showing no initiative, nor are the local authorities providing sufficient initiative. For example, Dublin Corporation increased the commercial rate by 0.5% in this year's estimates because the funding was not coming through from the Department of the Environment and Local Government to increase the number of litter wardens from two to 22. The shortfall was made up simply by increasing the burden on the commercial sector. This should not have to happen. It is not good enough to state that £1 million is being made available to the local authorities, of which there are 40 or 50, for litter initiatives over a period of three years. That will not solve the problem. That does not amount to what one could call sufficient resources. This is throwing peanuts at the problem.

There is a great deal to be done. I am inclined to agree with the proposal of Senator Quill that there should be a Minister for environmental protection. No doubt she will elaborate on that in her contribution, but that sounds like an excellent proposal in terms of providing leadership and focusing on the problem and of delegating responsibility to somebody who is accountable. Time is of the essence. The Government must draw up a package of plans to be implemented over a period of time and there must be a mechanism to monitor them. There can be immediate action if the Government provides the resources. Indeed, one must look at what is in existence already. There is the Litter Pollution Act, 1997, but that is not being implemented to the degree which is required. The Minister of State, Deputy Dan Wallace, gave what looked like impressive figures but in reality they do not impinge on the problem. As far as I can see, nobody is charged, fined or prosecuted for the vast amount of litter pollution. Why can there not be a tougher regime on litter pollution? The fine has been increased from £25 to £50, but who will do the policing and processing? The wardens are imposing approximately 30 on-the-spot fines each over a 12 month period. That is not many if people are working all day at keeping an eye on what is going on, particularly in crowded urban areas like Dublin. That will not make much impact. I agree with what one of my colleagues on Dublin City Council suggested last night, that there should be a "name and shame" process. When somebody is prosecuted, the local authority should list the person's name in the public media in much the same way as tax defaulters are listed by the Revenue Commissioners. The fact that their names could appear in the local newspaper or could be heard on the local radio station would be one way of bringing home to litter louts the consequences of their actions. In that sense the persons concerned could be identified as anti-social and not good citizens. That might have some impact. We must be tough on the issue. If the Government is not enforcing the law, it might as well not be in place. In the long term there is a need to do something special in the area of education, and I do not think there was one word about education in the speech of the Minister of State, Deputy Dan Wallace. There is a new programme on civil and political education for the junior certificate which will replace the old civics programme. A major component of that programme should address how we treat the environment. The Minister should speak to the Minister for Education and Science and put forward proposals for the curriculum. It should not be left to the Minister for Education and Science, who may not place the same importance on this issue as the Minister for the Environment and Local Government. The issue must be continually brought home to teachers and pupils in schools. The broad area of litter, recycling and waste management should be a focal and coherent aspect of education. That would make an interesting part of any curriculum. On the Continent one must purchase plastic bags to carry goods but in Ireland one is offered a plastic bag or the goods one purchases are put into a plastic bag. Often two plastic bags are put together or thrown at you as if there was a limitless supply of them. A charge must be imposed on the use of plastic because, as the House will be aware, it is not biodegradable and will last for centuries in its present form. One should not be able to get a plastic bag for goods unless one purchases it. I will not go into the other matter, the need to eradicate problems in rural water supplies. On the issue of waste management, it is four years since the enactment of the Waste Management Act and all the Minister of State, Deputy Dan Wallace, can tell us is that 11 local authorities have adopted a waste management plan, he expects another seven to do so by the end of the month and 16 more will do so by this time next year. By then, all local authorities will still not have adopted waste management plans. Dublin Corporation, the biggest local authority and the one of which I am a member has still not adopted a waste management plan. There are draft proposals but nothing has been decided yet in that regard. In other local authorities a waste management plan has been linked with service charges. Therefore, the local authorities will have to make decisions regarding incineration and waste disposal in the context of the imposition of a fee. That is not the way to go about it. If there is to be local taxation as an automatic link to the waste management plan, there will be a further delay and there will be different waste management plans and different levels of local taxation. Indeed, in some areas there will be no local taxation. Something similar happened in the 1980s when all hell broke loose over service charges, including water charges. We need dynamic leadership from the Department of the Environment and Local Government. The Department must show that it views litter as a national scandal and the one area in which we disgrace ourselves in the eyes of the world. We are projecting ourselves as the leaders in Europe in so many areas, as a young, dynamic country which has broken the barriers and is going forward in a very positive way. Litter is our black mark and it is the responsibility of the Minister and the Department to ensure we stop paying lip service and putting forward short-term proposals, as have been outlined, and that we have a dynamic set of recommendations with dynamic leadership.   Miss Quill: I welcome the Minister. I am disappointed that the broader debate sought by me and Senators Coogan and Costello on environmental protection was narrowed to the debate which has been offered. I know that was not the decision of the Minister of State, but I am disappointed that the focus has been narrowed and I will certainly convey that to the Leader. It means the issue of environmental protection will have to be debated by the House very soon and we will expect the Minister of State or the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, to attend. As a staunch supporter of the Government and its manifold achievements it gives me no pleasure to say that it has failed utterly in terms of litter control. Far too little is happening on the wider question of environmental protection, and what is happening is much too late. Litter is the most visible form of pollution. More than any other form of pollution it defines our environmental standards and our national identity for ourselves and our visitors, be they tourists or overseas investors on job generating missions. Litter is like a cancer on our clean and green reputation, relentlessly eating away at it week after week, year after year. People can see the evidence with their eyes. Expectations were high when the litter pollution legislation was enacted in 1997, but those expectations have not been met. Despite the efforts and initiatives as outlined by the Minister, the reality is that the position has worsened. Statistics are meaningless when people have the evidence before their eyes. I drove from Cork this morning and the level of litter on the trees, the hedgerows and the lovely young budding spring bushes was disgraceful. The reality is that with certain significant exceptions, such as Clonakilty and Kenmare and a number of other towns which enter the tidy towns competition, the country has become filthy and litter strewn. This has inevitable consequences. The tourism industry, on which we have pinned so many of our hopes for the future, is already being hit. The Germans, who are fastidious in these matters and who are very good, high spending tourists, are not coming in great numbers in recent years. The UK market, despite a very favourable currency arrangement in their favour, is not expanding as was expected. Bord Fáilte will confirm that of all the complaints made to them by tourists, the highest ranking concerns litter. One might think it would be high charges in hotels or restaurants or the high cost of car hire or petrol, but 14% of tourists surveyed last year complained about the level of litter and found it unacceptable, strongly indicating they would not be returning. We will ignore this at our peril. The reality is that tourists come to Ireland because they believe it to be a green and clean country, a relaxed place where they can eat food which is grown in a clean and healthy soil, where they can visually see a clean and unspoilt countryside, a landscape which has retained something of its pristine qualities. This is the image of Ireland which has been sold abroad. We really have questions to ask when tourists come and find the opposite is true. If the perception goes abroad that somehow this is not a clean country and does not have high standards of hygiene we will see a detrimental effect on the tourism industry. It is natural to conclude that if we are careless about what we throw in the street we are careless about our kitchens, abattoirs and the way we prepare food. It will also inevitably effect our food industry. The country's infrastructure is brittle enough. The industries currently thriving may not be here in 25 years. The jobs which are now so well paid may not exist then. Modern industry is very mobile and industries come and go, with jobs gained and lost. Our most enduring asset is the tourism industry, if we look after it properly, and our food industry, if we grow our food in a clean and green environment. The consequences of our failure to do that are very real in the long term, not to mention the implications for our public health if we do not do something to control water pollution. I do not want to be seen as entirely negative - I hope I am seen as realistic. I wish the national spring clean campaign which began this morning well, but we should remind ourselves that we have had similar campaigns through the years and while they worked reasonably well for the duration of the campaign, in no time people revert to the bad old habits. Litter is only one element of our environmental degradation. The position in relation to waste management is now at crisis level. We are producing 80 million tonnes of waste per year, most of which is going directly into landfill. Our efforts at minimisation are minuscule; our recycling efforts are miserable and derisory. As Senator Costello stated, the Kerbside initiative was good in principle but has been discontinued in the city because of a lack of monitoring, management and investment. Our level of recycling is miserably small compared to other developed countries, with which we compete successfully in other fields. In terms of recycling Ireland is at the bottom of the pile. Senator Coogan has raised on a number of occasions the issue of what we will do with all this waste. One half of the people do not want dumps. "No dump" signs line the roads in almost every county where proposals are mooted to locate a dump. This is official litter as opposed to provisional litter. Such signs are sprouting everywhere like new potatoes in the spring. On the other hand, the other half of the people do not want any form of thermal treatment or incineration. The debate is ongoing at local level. Strong national leadership is needed in this area but it has not emerged. It is the task of Government to govern and I am calling for strong leadership at national level in regard to waste management so that all the information which results from new technologies is made available. In order to decide whether to opt for landfill, incineration or thermal treatment the most up to date information should be made available to the Government, produced by independent sources which do not have sectoral or vested interests. It is the duty of Government to make such information available to local authorities, which must make key decisions individually or in groups if waste is to be dealt with in a systematic manner over the next five to six years. That is not happening. We have failed at every level of waste management. We are not recycling, minimising or adopting best practice in regard to how we deal with waste which cannot be recycled or minimised. The citizens of New York city segregate waste on a daily basis. If they do not segregate waste properly it is not collected and if it remains uncollected a hefty fine is imposed. There is a strong sanction. The infrastructure is put in place to enable householders to segregate their waste and the service is provided to collect it but if people do not comply they pay a significant fine. A proper level of service has been developed and if it is not properly availed of hefty sanctions are imposed. That is the way to do business. No effort is made in Ireland in regard to composting, even though all of us are only a wink of an eye from being off the soil, as Deputy O'Malley remarked on the television programme, "Seven Ages", last night. Every Sunday people go to garden centres to buy fertilisers and seed to put on their lawns when they could be composting and producing all their own fertiliser and weedkiller, etc.. They are quite content to go to such a centre to buy these products even though they could produce them at home. It takes leadership.   Mr. D. Wallace: It takes local leadership.   Mr. Costello: It also takes resources.   Miss Quill: Leadership, resources and education are required to make that happen. Mindsets cannot be changed without putting an emphasis on education, as Senator Costello rightly stated. We live in an age of ongoing education. Such education does not have to be undertaken when one is in nursery school because all the media are at one's disposal and I will refer to that later. However, that is the current scenario in regard to waste disposal and it is appalling in a country which has developed as well as ours. We are sophisticated enough to adopt modern waste disposal methods. The Minister of State correctly remarked that confidence was lost in the old system of landfilling but lost confidence must be regained through good leadership, which is why I place such strong emphasis on leadership. Government must also demonstrate that it is serious about these matters. The Minister of State and I have engaged in ongoing correspondence regarding phosphates in water. I have told him more than once that I would have imposed a total ban on the domestic use of phosphates. He has responded to me in national daily newspapers that his method of dealing with the issue has been to put in place a voluntary code. Mr. D. Wallace: It was conveyed to me that this was the best way.

Miss Quill: I compliment him on doing that but one of the reasons I would have implemented a total ban would have been to demonstrate to the public that I was taking environmental protection seriously. If people think that the Government is taking it seriously, they may then be tempted to do likewise in larger numbers. That is the benefit of imposing a ban, such as that which was imposed in Dublin a number of years ago regarding to the use of bituminous coal. I am one of a number of people who wish to recycle more material but the infrastructure is not in place.   Mr. Norris: Hear, hear.   Miss Quill: We are told that is so because the market fluctuates and sometimes fails and that is the nature of this business. If the market fails, a Government which is serious about this issue should introduce a system of subsidy. Our record shows that we are obviously not serious. We do not need more of the same because it has not got us anywhere. Urgent, dramatic and long-term action is needed and that is why I have called more than once on the Taoiseach to appoint a Minister with sole responsibility for environmental protection. I wrote a letter to him on 28 March, in which I stated: Dear Taoiseach, I am very concerned about the current state of play re: litter pollution, waste management, water, air and soil pollution. I think it will be a major issue in the next election, especially the landfill site v incinerator agenda. I accept that trojan efforts are being made to confront the situation. Unfortunately however events are constantly outpacing the efforts. I am now convinced that the matter warrants the appointment of a full cabinet minister with all the status and resources that such a person can command. The Environmental Protection Agenda is of critical importance for the future economic and social development of this country i.e. our tourist industry, our food/agricultural industry and public health. I went on to state: The current environmental portfolio with its many faceted demands is too wide. A sharper focus must be put on Environmental Protection. I hope the next line of the letter will be taken seriously. It states: The partnership approach has served this country well. We must seek to develop a partnership approach to Environmental Protection. Charismatic leadership is needed to enlist public engagement in finding solutions. Many thanks for your attention to this matter. I have not yet heard from the Taoiseach but I made my point as forcefully as I could. I want to highlight two issues referred to in the letter. The first is the partnership approach. The Government cannot deal effectively with this issue on its own. Unless mindsets are changed and the citizens are convinced that they must take a sense of ownership of their own litter and some responsibility for its proper disposal, we will not succeed. All the laws in the world, no matter how stringently they are enforced, will not succeed on their own unless there is a willingness among the general public to play its part, in partnership with either central or local government, and with local initiatives. That is fundamentally important. Everyone in this House remembers a time when there was a "them" and "us" approach in trade union matters - the workers versus the bosses - which led to a barren approach to issues. We then began to put in place the partnership approach to work practices and issues of that nature. If we applied that model to environmental protection, we would make progress. No matter how strong the Government and regardless of the resources spent, unless the general public is convinced that they have a role to play and a responsibility to protect our environment, we will not achieve our objectives. I have advocated the partnership approach but it takes time, effort, skill and leadership to put that approach in place, however, it can be done. It is possible to sway an innocent general public. I would point to the campaign Telecom Éireann ran when it went public and began to sell its shares. I had never bought a share in my life and I did not even know how to set about buying a share, but having watched the advertisements night after night on television I was seduced, as were other members of my family who could ill-afford to squander money, into buying shares. My point is that a skilfully designed and delivered campaign can change mindsets and bring about the intended results. That is what I mean by charismatic leadership. That is what is needed. The Government is spending an astronomical figure that only Bill Gates would understand - something like £2 billion - on the national plan. It would be a good investment if we put £1 million of that sum into a well designed campaign to change the mindsets of the people and put in place the partnership of which I speak. There is a great deal of talk about the role schools can play in dealing with this problem. In my experience, most schools have a good environmental practice in place within their perimeter walls. The school in which I taught has the green flag for best waste management practice. Mr. Norris: God bless Cork. That is not the case in Dublin, I regret to say. Ms Quill: Not alone is this school litter free but it has a waste management scheme in place which involves doing an audit on every item that comes into the school and examining, segregating and directing waste to the compost heap or elsewhere. I am talking about St. Vincent's school in Cork city. That practice has nothing to do with my being there; I have not been in the school for the past 14 years. The point I am trying to make is that most schools are good about litter management in the school but when the youngsters go home in the evening, it is a scéal eile. It is not enough to reach out to young people, important and all as that is, but the example they get from their elders and their betters, as Brendan Behan would say, is what sets the agenda for them. This issue has to be tackled at a number of different levels. I am not blaming anybody but the environment portfolio is far too wide. It encompasses roads, with all the road building that is currently taking place, planning and housing, which are two major issues; and a range of other responsibilities. If we are truly serious about environmental protection, the Government should appoint a Minister with specific responsibility for that area. When one considers where we are on this issue and where we should be, the gap would be enough to tax any Minister. If that is not done we will continue to nibble at the problem, and it will be grand for a while, and little villages and towns in Clare and Galway will be clean every day of the year but in general terms the country will not be clean and we will pay the price. Our environment is our most precious asset. It is the womb in which we live out our days. I made the case for keeping the country clean for our tourists but I too want to live out my days in a clean environment. It gives me no pleasure to leave the house in the morning and pick my way through the remains of the man who ate his chicken supper on the street on the way home. I want to live out my days in a clean, litter free environment. That is my entitlement. Our environment is the birthright of the generations not yet born. Those of us in this generation are custodians of our environment. We got it in pretty good shape due to the fact that this country escaped the industrial revolution and the worst excesses of industries based on coal and steel. Any Government that fails to take appropriate action to protect our environment has a case to answer. Since I am a member of a Government party, I will conclude with that statement.   Acting Chairman (Mr. Coogan): I think the Senator's contribution will make them wonder about that.

Mr. Norris: May I ask the permission of the House to share my time with my colleague and friend, Senator Cosgrave? Acting Chairman: Is that agreed? Agreed. Mr. Norris: We should be grateful to the city of Cork for the lead it has given in this area because the Minister of State, who is one of the most decent people in this or any other Government, has taken responsibility for this particularly awkward and distressing problem. He is part of a dynasty of decent Cork people. I have had the pleasure of being in the company of himself and his son, who I believe is still Lord Mayor of Cork. I understand this debate was vigorously sought and achieved by Senator Quill, who is a member of a partnership Government and who is also from Cork. It seems to me that in this instance Cork is clearly leading the way and I am happy to grant them that privilege. The schools in Cork should certainly teach the schools in Dublin something. I was interested in what Senator Quill said about the school where she used to be a teacher. She obviously taught her students a good deal or, alternatively, if we look at her comments in another way, it took 14 years to clean up after her. I know of a very prominent school in Dublin which was visited by a friend of mine recently who is a teacher. She saw the kids change class and throw all the rubbish along the corridor. When she went into the classrooms she found they were filthy. There was a poor woman cleaning up who said she had to clean up after every class. I know a little about this matter because I see some of those kids throwing their rubbish all over the pavement. These are well brought up, well educated middle-class kids. We have a real psychological problem. It is a problem of ownership of responsibility for the environment in which we live. It is quite extraordinary that patriotic Irish people, that citizens of Dublin who would defend their city to the death, are prepared so regularly to treat the city with utter and absolute contempt. It is not just an aesthetic issue. There is an economic core as well. Nobody could have ignored over the past couple of years the number of letters to the national papers from tourists, many of them of Irish origin, expressing their shock, concern and shame at the way we treat our environment in terms of litter. They link that to their feeling of safety because they say, "If people are prepared to treat their environment in this fashion, in what way will they us as visitors to it?" It is important to have this debate and I acknowledge that the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, launched the National Spring Clean 2000 campaign yesterday in Dublin Castle as part of an anti-litter initiative. In this he has had the very able assistance of An Taisce and other groups. I am glad we are having this debate because I have ranted on about this subject on numerous occasions. I have got myself into trouble sometimes for acting as an unofficial litter warden. On numerous occasions I have seen well dressed people outside sweet shops carefully take a wrapper off an ice lollipop, hand the lolly to a child and then throw the wrapper on the ground. Of course you cannot humiliate a parent in front of a child because it is not fair to either party. Instead I pick up the wrapper and present it to the adult saying, "Excuse me. I think you dropped this." Unfortunately, the usual answer is, "It's all right love, I was just throwing it away", which rather misses the point. Trying to correct people's behaviour means that things can get rather difficult. It is for that reason that I sympathise with litter wardens. There are not enough of them and the fines are not severe enough. Increasing a fine from £25 to £50 in the era of the Celtic tiger has so little effect that you might as well not bother. The Minister ought to make a fine really sting. The sum of £50 would get lost in the hole in your tooth in this weather. Shortly after Christmas I had occasion to be in Moore Street and I will give an edited version of what happened. There was a young girl of about ten years of age who was wearing a very nice, well pressed, clean and neat school uniform. She was holding a tray which had quite a lot of chips, chicken nuggets and a hamburger on it. She took one look at the fast food, wrinkled her upper lip disdainfully and spread the whole damn lot all over the pavement. This was too much for me and I said, "Come here, you horrid little girl. Pick that up at once and don't ever let me see you do the like again." The mother turned on me and said "It's none of your f....ing business." I replied, "It certainly is my f....ing business because I have to walk in the f....ing dirt your f....ing little daughter sees fit to spread all over the public footpath." At that a man, who was not involved in this exchange, said to me, "You fat, baldy headed, woman hating old ****."   Acting Chairman: He knew the Senator.   Mr. Norris: Touché - a palpable wound.   Acting Chairman: Please forgive me.   Mr. Norris: The man continued and said, "On your way." He threatened to hit me if I did not move on. I was quite intimidated by him but I refused to move. If I, as a fairly burly individual, get that type of treatment, what about litter wardens? They must be subjected to this type of abuse all of the time. Litter wardens should operate in pairs. They must get a lot of abuse because people take it very personally when they are reprimanded and they feel humiliated. It is part of our culture to be filthy. We almost glory in it. To be Irish is to be drunk and filthy. We need to correct these impressions but before we do that we need to correct the reality. Unfortunately, far too often the reality is that on national days like St. Patrick's Day we are perceived accurately as being in large measure both drunken and dirty. That is a great shame and a reproach to all of us. If anyone took the trouble to look at our principal streets or at St. Stephen's Green after the national feast day they would have had something on which to feast their eyes. I would like to compliment Dublin Corporation. It has an intensely difficult job cleaning up after the filthy citizens of Dublin. It does a remarkable job. I often walk home from Leinster House or from the theatre and I have seen workmen with machines or brushes and carts cleaning up the streets. I stop to pay them a little compliment because it is just like the classical legend of Sisyphus who was condemned always to roll a stone to the top of a hill. The minute he got the stone to the top of the hill it rolled all the way back down again. He had the backbreaking, disappointing, disillusioning and disheartening job of endlessly performing the same task. So it is with the people who are charged with the responsibility of cleaning up litter after extremely dirty and obnoxious people. We must change the psychology. We must get it into people's heads that it is their own property and public space that they are defiling. Legislation is important in this. I am intrigued by the figures that the Minister of State put on record. He said that there are 300 litter wardens employed, nearly 8,300 on-the-spot fines were issued, over 850 prosecutions were taken and over 350 convictions secured for the first half of 1999. That is quite a small amount but it is significantly larger than was quoted on the radio by a Governmen spokesman. He said there were only 20 litter wardens in Dublin. Perhaps the Minister of State would be able to break down the figures and indicate how many litter wardens are in Dublin. I understood that there were only 20 litter wardens. It was stated on the radio that there are 20 litter wardens in the Dublin Corporation area, perhaps just operating in central Dublin, and that 100 fines were secured every week. Perhaps that information may have been incorrect or I may have misunderstood it. I am not a great mathematician but if you divide 100 by 20 you will get five. That means that there was one conviction per working day per litter warden. That is not a high productivity yield. Perhaps the reason for the low conviction rate is that litter wardens are intimidated. I suggest we invest in litter wardens, increase the fine so that it hurts and combine both these strategies with an educational programme. When I was at school there were no civics classes, but I would have been horrified at the idea of throwing litter around the streets. Perhaps I am not fully Irish. Perhaps I inherited this trait from my father who was English. I do not know. I do know that we are now being invited to look at the film "Nora" about the young life of James and Nora Joyce. An incident mentioned in Richard Ellmann's great biography of Joyce occurred when they went to Switzerland, which was the first time they went abroad together. Nora Joyce, who had thrown some paper on the ground, was required by a policeman to pick it up or be fined. She was astonished to hear that this was the attitude to litter in Switzerland. At the end of Joyce's life, he said to a remarkable woman, Carola Giedion-Welcher, who became a friend of mine towards the end of her life, that although Switzerland was very clean, the Swiss did not understand how wonderful dirt was. That was Joyce's attitude, he appreciated dirt. I think we should learn how to appreciate cleanliness and the beauty of a clean city. The problem is getting worse and one of the reasons is our prosperity, because we now have more wrapped goods and rubbish to throw away. We can be more flaithiúlach with the detritus of 21st century civilisation. We are not entirely helpless. Some areas have wheelie bins, which were a wonderful invention. They keep domestic rubbish and litter secure and do not allow it to be spread along the street. In my area of the city we are very lucky if people bother to put out their rubbish in plastic bags, particularly those living in apartments. Yesterday I telephoned the very courteous, decent people in the refuse section of Dublin Corporation to remark on the fact that several of my neighbours, one of whom recently wrote to the newspapers on the subject of litter, had put out their rubbish in open, plastic supermarket bags. That is 100% disastrous.   Miss Quill: Disgraceful.   Mr. Norris: Even the black plastic bags get torn by every passing dog and cat who can smell a bone inside. National attitudes are very important and this issue has an impact on tourism. I hope the Government's initiative works. It has been mentioned that some of the infrastructure necessary to encourage good management and good housekeeping by individuals is absent. This is, effectively, the point made by Senator Quill. That is nowhere more true than in the Houses of the Oireachtas.   Miss Quill: Yes.   Mr. Norris: We are a reproach to the whole legislative process. We are talking here in very high-minded terms about this. However, our two wonderful secretaries in Kildare House helped initiate a scheme to recycle our enormous volume of paper, which was cancelled within the Houses of the Oireachtas. The suggestion was that there was not sufficient volume, but there would certainly be sufficient volume if every Member of the Houses got involved in filling the containers. We can recycle. There is too much packaging everywhere. We should do as they do in Germany and return all this rubbish - the plastic bottles, expanded polystyrene and foam baskets - to the shops we get it in and let them return it to the manufacturers. Unless we make it difficult for the manufacturers, they will continue to make it difficult for decent citizens by compounding the problem with excess and unnecessary packaging.

Mr. Cosgrave: I thank Senator Norris for sharing his time with me. I welcome the Minister of State to the House. He has been spearheading the difficult task of dealing with what I am sure he knows is a partly poisoned chalice. That task is made more difficult by the absence, at times, of a clear waste management plan. We need new thinking because some of the old ways will not work in the future. We must get through to people the necessity to clean up their act. Senator Norris gave a few good examples and Senators Coogan and Quill made some good suggestions. If we do not educate the young, and often not so young, people about some basic matters, this problem will get out of control. I was talking recently to someone in the tourism industry who agreed that while we cannot control the weather, if we do not control litter, tourists will not return or word will spread about dirty Ireland and they will not come here. This problem is spreading to our beaches, roads, footpaths outside shops and so on. If we do not address this minefield, it will not matter what type of weather we have because tourists will not come here anyhow. I sometimes go to a beach in Senator Walsh's county of Wexford, where there are big bins. However, there is not enough of them and they are not emptied often enough, particularly at weekends. People pile rubbish into them and they overflow. Practical steps must be taken. The provision of extra bins should almost pay for itself. Many shopkeepers and so on would be quite happy to sponsor bins, for which they would get some publicity. Some areas take this quite seriously in terms of the tidy towns competition and those areas are a pleasure to drive through. One would almost eat one's food off the roads and paths in such areas. However, unfortunately, such areas are increasingly becoming the exception. I was interested in what Senator Norris said about litter wardens. I do not know how many are employed by the city or the other two Dublin authorities, but Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council employs three or four litter wardens but I have never seen a litter warden in that area in my 20 years in public life. I wonder how many Members have seen a litter warden on their travels. I do not know if they can be recognised by their attire. It has been suggested that they should work in pairs, in the way traffic wardens and the famous clampers do. It would probably be unfair to expect them to work alone, given the stories one hears about people who were challenged about litter and replied with a string of verbal abuse. From the figures supplied by the Minister of State on the number of on-the-spot-fines and prosecutions last year, it appears that only between 25% and 30% of offenders are convicted. Is there a need for improvements in how these prosecutions are brought? Is there a problem in terms of identification and the necessary evidence? Some time ago a judge ordered a person who was fined for littering to wear a sandwich board indicating that he was an offender. Given all the problems, it might be no harm to increase on-the-spot fines from £25 to £50, a sum which is not high in modern terms. I support what has been said about educating children at school about litter, but shopping centres, cinemas and fast food outlets must play an even greater role in controlling litter. I hope people such as Senator Quinn and others in the supermarket business will contribute also, perhaps by way of competition. They create a certain amount of waste, although Superquinn runs a very clean operation. People come out of supermarkets with umpteen plastic bags under their arms and there seems to be no limit to them. When people put out their rubbish in such small plastic bags rather than the large black sacks, it is a recipe for trouble because cats and dogs can rip them open. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is in the process of introducing wheelie bins, although there are problems with charges. People who make the effort to take their cans and bottles to recycling bays should be charged less for their rubbish collection service. At least they are making some effort, but other people throw sharp cans and bottles everywhere, even on the beach. Their children or their neighbours' children could get into difficulties as a result of such behaviour. I wish the Minister well in launching the national spring clean campaign but funding for the campaign must be realistic. We must examine the modernisation of waste management. The Minister referred to this matter in his speech when he said:   To date, the primary focus in relation to the modernisation of waste management has been the development and improvement of our waste management planning system as a basis for radical improvements in waste management practice and infrastructure, and the implementation of an effective and comprehensive waste licensing and permitting system which ensures that waste recovery and disposal activities comply with high standards of environmental protection.   Those of us who are members of local authorities will support the Minister in his efforts. He should take into account the points that have been made, particularly concerning how litter control is policed. More litter wardens are needed and they must be given slightly more resources. There have been insufficient convictions for causing litter in recent times so there is room for improvement. We will support the Minister and it is only by working together that such matters can be sorted out. Given our so-called Celtic tiger economy and the tourist industry, we cannot afford to contemplate failure in controlling litter. If we do not brush up our act regarding litter, tourists will not continue to come here and even Irish people will want to leave. This has been a useful debate and the contributions have been both realistic and positive. No one is saying that litter is the Minister's fault. It is a problem that confronts everyone, so we must all respond positively. The debate will have provided a few more ideas for the Minister to take into consideration.   Mr. Walsh: Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire go dtí an Teach seo. Molaim an iarracht atá sé a dhéanamh le dhul chun cinn san ábhair seo. A number of Senators have taken issue with the Minister's comment that litter is a national scandal. The Minister is quite right in saying so, however, because litter is an endemic problem throughout Irish society. When one visits other countries one can see that they have a better culture of maintaining clean streets and footpaths. The comparison is striking, although not all countries are like that. In recent weeks I visited Rome where the litter problem is unbelievable. It would put us in the ha'penny place. We are not unique as regards indiscriminate littering. Efforts have been made in the past to remedy the situation. The Minister deserves to be complimented on the various initiatives he has taken in this regard. Although some Senators implied as much, litter is not the Minister's sole responsibility. The main responsibility must rest with local authorities. Undoubtedly, the Litter Act, 1997, provided the machinery for local government to deal with the problem. Local authorities are not, however, uniformly applying the powers they have under that Act. If the litter problem is to be resolved in future it must be tackled in various ways. The Minister has laid heavy emphasis on education and awareness which are important planks in the fight against litter. In general our schoolteachers and local tidy town groups play an important part in creating awareness at that level. Senator Norris mentioned the case of a child who took the wrapper off a chocolate bar and handed it to the mother who threw it on the ground. In many instances, perhaps because of the climate in which we all grew up, parents are lagging considerably behind their children in terms of awareness of litter. Apart from education, deterrents need to be rigorously applied but, unfortunately, that is not happening to the degree that it should. Senator Norris cited statistics for on-the-spot litter fines and said it came down to one fine per warden per day, which is obviously a very low productivity ratio. The Minister has provided the machinery for tackling the problem by increasing on-the-spot fines from £25 to £50. I do not concur with other speakers who said the fine should be doubled to £100. Fifty pounds is the on-the-spot fine for speeding and it would be difficult to claim that littering is a greater offence, therefore, £50 is an adequate deterrent, always presuming that an enforcement system is in operation. We are perhaps falling down in that area. Local authorities should be encouraged to engage more litter wardens than at present. They should ensure that litter wardens are vigorous in the manner in which they undertake their duties. I have had experience of a litter warden being engaged by a local authority, with which I am familiar, and his instructions from the administrative officer in charge were to take it easy and not cause too many problems. How can a litter warden do his job under such instructions? I am also aware of a situation where the on-the-spot fines were not pursued by the administrative section of the local authority at a fairly senior level, which flabbergasted me. I question seriously the will of local authorities. I have found in general that elected members endorse anti-litter policies but for some reason, many staff and managers do not give them the priority necessary to eradicate or at least significantly reduce the problem. One often hears complaints from administrative staff that when they pursue people in the courts for fines, the Judiciary does not always regard these as serious offences, which seriousness would create the deterrent necessary if we are to achieve the compliance levels we seek. When one examines the cost of waste management and street cleaning one wonders whether it is all necessary. Some years ago, the urban council in my area took an initiative to create awareness through shock tactics and it was decided that the streets would not be swept for several days, in order that people would see the amount of litter being scattered. Certainly the litter was visible but the message conveyed, if it was brought home at all, was very temporary. On the other hand, where one encourages people to take pride in their local areas and in the country, one gets a response. There was a street sweeping programme in our urban district area and as new housing estates were built we did not increase the staff in order to extend the service to those housing estates. After some years we ended up providing a service to certain estates and not to others. It raised the question that if some estates were not being swept and the people were looking after their own problem by not allowing litter to be spread around their estates, or by collecting it and organising themselves, why did we have to provide the service to those estates who were littering? Ultimately, we withdrew the service from all housing estates and in the main it worked very well. It showed that people will take responsibility where they identify with the area as part of their own locality and they are prepared to take some pride in it. If we can extend that culture, we will see a general improvement. In the context of local initiatives, the tidy towns committees provide, on a voluntary basis, a very valuable input to tackling this problem and significantly increase people's awareness of taking pride in and improving the appearance of their localities. I compliment An Taisce for the spring clean-up initiative undertaken last year and the Minister and his Department as well for co-funding and recognising the value of that initiative. In 1999, 150,000 people are estimated to have participated in 1,700 events countrywide. It is estimated that 7,300 tonnes of rubbish was collected and disposed of in the process. This year those statistics are being set at more ambitious levels and it is hoped that 200,000 people will participate in approximately 2,000 events and that in excess of 10,000 tonnes of rubbish will be collected. By combining the voluntary and the statutory efforts and creating awareness will bring about a significant improvement. As the Minister of State outlined, £1 million has been provided to local authorities for anti-litter initiatives over the past three years. The national tidy towns competition could perhaps be used to greater effect in the anti-litter campaign. There is a section dealing with litter in the marking system for the assessment of each town in the national competition. We should expand that section, have a separate section or carry it out a grading basis, whereby local authority jurisdictional areas would be graded on a one to five or a one to ten category rather than giving marks. The monitoring outlined by the Minister State which will now take place, will be part of the overall monitoring of local government. It often struck me as an anomaly that the implementation of the policy is an executive function, yet I seriously doubt that when an official applies for promotion to another grade, to assistant county manager or county manager, he or she will ever be assessed on the action taken in this area. It is all based on an interview system. The system of promotion in local government should be put on a far more enlightened basis than currently applies, where a good performer at interview can achieve the higher grade over somebody who might not interview as well but who might be far more effective at doing their job and delivering on policy implementation. That system could be examined so that in future, assessment would have a built-in performance related element. To emphasise the point about local government, its responsibilities and its failure sometimes to deal adequately with the problem, how many times does one see litter bins in urban areas for which a local authority is responsible, which are overflowing or which have no cover and the papers are blowing out of them? If one does not have awareness and absolute commitment at local government level, which is the agency responsible for implementing and ensuring compliance with the legislation, it is difficult to expect awareness or a culture of compliance among the public. The problem of plastic bags has been referred to and there has been discussion about putting a tax on plastic bags. Some action needs to be taken in that regard. Most of the major retail outlets will dispense plastic bags like confetti at a wedding - they give them out with gay abandon. Unfortunately, they present a huge pollution problem and a very difficult disposal problem in waste management terms. If the problem of litter is to be tackled and resolved to everybody's satisfaction there will have to be far greater commitment at local government level. The Minister of State has outlined that the monitoring of local government is a matter which he will initiate at Departmental level. That should be done rigorously and publicly in order that local authorities which are falling behind will be highlighted. Members of local authorities can then use their influence to ensure compliance and commitment at official level. Maybe then we will see some much needed improvement. Litter wardens must be used. Those causing the problem must be pursued and, as Senator Costello said, publicity must be used to shame the culprits. If the fact that they are fined is publicised that will act as a deterrent. The Minister of State was criticised by Senator Coogan for outlining his response on the quality of rural water supplies. I remind the Senator that statements were invited on the unacceptable level of litter and the need to eradicate quality problems in rural water supplies and the Minister of State was invited to make a statement in that regard. He rightly took the opportunity to outline the significant initiatives that have been implemented under his stewardship. The national development plan has allocated £420 million to this area, which means £60 million will be spent for each year of the plan's life. That £60 million can be compared to the £8 million spent in 1996 and is a significant increase by any standards. It will go a significant way towards improving water quality, particularly for the 50,000 households dependent on group water supplies. There will also be 100% funding available for water disinfection and filtration equipment for private schemes. We debated EU drinking water quality analyses in the past year and found that standards were acceptable within the EU levels, apart from those of rural water schemes. Resources have now been provided to ensure that we comply with drinking water regulations. Grants have been increased from 75% to 85% and the maximum grant has been increased from £1,600 to £6,000, which is also very significant. The Minister of State has dealt with water quality management in our rivers and it is good to see that extended to various lakes throughout the country. The national development plan is providing £3 million for the treatment of waste water and rural water. It is essential that we move as quickly as we can to abolish the present system which allows raw sewage into our rivers and lakes. We should not display this lack of environmental awareness as we turn into a new century, though it is intended to eliminate this problem by 2005 or 2006 and the funding provided in the national development plan will facilitate that. The Minister of State has outlined his initiatives to combat eutrophication arising from excess phosphorous in our rivers. I compliment him on getting a voluntary agreement from the Irish Detergents and Allied Products Association. This type of voluntary agreement will often bear greater fruit than introducing regulations which have to be implemented. Compliance with such regulations often depends on the degree of enforcement. This is a particularly good agreement as it is estimated that approximately 90% of the phosphorous in laundry detergents can be eliminated within two years. That is a significant step in meeting the targets set in this area. I am glad the Minister of State dealt with waste management. This area will exercise the minds and resources of local government for the next decade and longer. I do not agree with Senators who called on the Minister of State to show strong national leadership in determining the type of waste management that should be pursued. Many Senators are probably seeking a national policy on thermal treatment and incineration. I have always been a strong advocate of the principle of subsidiarity. We have a great propensity for national policies rather than allowing local communities and councils to come forward with their own policies, which could fit into an overall national policy. At the local level some Members might like to hide under the umbrella of a national policy on incineration, which is a controversial issue. Every regional authority has undertaken a waste management strategy for its area, to the best of my knowledge. We debated ours in the south-east and many local authorities have adopted it. I am glad that Wexford has not, though some might be critical of us for that. However, we are a little more environmentally aware in Wexford than in some other south-eastern counties which favour incineration. We have opposed it and had a good debate on the matter for over 12 months, considering all aspects of the issue. We concluded that the risks of dioxin emissions and other dust particulates were not risks we in Wexford wanted to expose ourselves to. That was our right. There are 21 council members and 19 voted in favour for a landfill and against the plan, with one member abstaining and one voting against the proposal. That is as near as one can get to unanimity without having it. I see is no better example of the democratic process than people, accountable to the public at local level, coming to a decision which will be controversial in some part of the county and which will have some effect, be it positive or negative. The decision was democratically taken and is a good example of local democracy in action. When examining the issue we had information on various areas, such as Lille in France, where incinerators have been closed. People might say that such incinerators were old and therefore would not be of the requisite standard, but recently many Belgian agricultural products, particularly milk, have been contaminated by dioxins and taken out of the food chain. We are generally regarded in Europe as a green, environmentally aware country and we need not expose ourselves to change of this kind. Incineration runs contrary to the principles enunciated by the Department, Ministers and others in this area. Those principles include having a tiered approach to waste management, minimisation, recycling, composting and disposal. Incineration is a commercial activity. Its commerciality will be governed to a large extent on the volumes it will attract. Minimisation, re-use, recycling and composting could become secondary to the need for an incinerator which would require huge capital investment and which would also incur high operating costs. It is up to each local authority to make its own decision on this issue. We should not develop the idea of a "nanny state" where someone in Dublin makes decisions for the entire country. That idea is anathema to me and I am surprised that some Senators advocated it. The Minister stated that he wishes to give effect to the "polluter pays" principle. That is an issue on which we should place greater emphasis to ensure that incentives and penalties alike will apply to households in regard to the manner in which they dispose of waste. That is where segregation comes in. People in Canada know in advance that if they fail to segregate their waste, it will cost them money. Therefore, segregation becomes second nature to them. We, too, should separate our plastics, recyclables and so on. That should occur at household level because it would prove very costly to do it at a subsequent stage. The almost universal practice throughout the country of levying an annual charge for waste disposal should be examined. Wexford was one of the first counties to introduce wheelie bins which are a marked improvement on plastic bags, both from a hygiene point of view for those who collect the rubbish and from the point of view of the efficiency of the collection system. I hope this system will eventually be extended throughout the country. An annual charge applies for this service and that does not provide an incentive for people to minimise their levels of waste. Landfill is so costly that we must avail of every opportunity to cut back on the volume of waste to be disposed. The levying of an annual fee does not take account of the fact that people living alone or old age pensioners may have their bins emptied only once a month. If we really want to apply the "polluter pays" principle, we must devise a system of charging by volume or weight. I am aware that some local authorities are considering this issue. Perhaps the Department could ascertain whether the best available practice in this area could be sourced abroad and introduced here. That would certainly be a step in the right direction. A sum of £650 million has been set aside in the national development plan for waste management infrastructure over the seven years of the plan. I welcome the fact that £100 million of this figure is to be dedicated to support for waste recovery measures. That is the direction we must take in the future. In some counties local authorities have involved themselves in the collection process whereas in others they have not. Where that is done, it is important that private operators are not placed at a disadvantage through the application of higher than necessary dump charges. That would be an anti-competitive measure which could be used against the private sector. The same argument applies to the Dublin transportation system; if one successfully injects competition into a service, it will be efficient and cost effective. Senator Quill referred to a letter she wrote to the Taoiseach in which she sought the appointment of a full Cabinet Minister with exclusive responsibility for these matters. Should the Taoiseach accede to her request, he could not find a better person to fill the position than the Minister of State, Deputy Wallace.

Dr. Henry: I congratulate Senator Quill on having promoted this debate. The debate is described as statements on the unacceptable level of litter etc. There is no acceptable level of litter. I was interested in the debate which raged on Joe Duffy's "Liveline" about a senior counsel who threw away a cigarette when being filmed by a television camera. Litter starts with something as small as a cigarette butt. I am extraordinarily sad to see that in spite of the amount of cleaning which occurs outside Leinster House, one frequently sees a considerable number of cigarette butts strewn on the ground. I suppose we are spared seeing lumps of chewing gum such as I see at the Rotunda Hospital. I seem to recall that some years ago there was a promotion of two attractive sand-filled urns on either side of the doors of Leinster House in which people could extinguish their cigarette butts. I understand the Minister's point that litter is a problem for local authorities. However, until members of the public take ownership of the problem, we will not get very far. The problem belongs to all of us. Like other Senators, I have found the lack of rubbish bins in Dublin to be problematic. I live on Burlington Road on which there are no bins in spite of the fact that fast food outlets are located on Baggot Street and Leeson Street. Some Senators stated that they had received information that Dublin Corporation intends to provide more litter bins. However, when I contacted the corporation, I was informed that there was no plan to provide more litter bins and that people should take their rubbish home with them. It would be useful if the corporation had a consistent policy on this matter in order that we would all receive the same information. The decision made by Dublin Corporation last night, which was initiated by Councillor Kevin Humphries, to name litter louts is an extremely good one. Nobody would like to be fined £50 for dropping paper bags or polystyrene boxes on the street. Naming and shaming is a very good idea and I hope it will be taken up widely. I am glad street cleaners have been praised because theirs is an unenviable task. They clean the streets beautifully only to find them littered again a short time later. The litter problem is equally bad throughout the country. I received a letter from a 77 year old constituent, who had a heart by-pass, in which she informed me that she regularly cleans the sides of the road near her home in Rathdrum, County Wicklow, because she is so ashamed of the litter and the effect it has on tourists. If one travels by ferry from France or Wales to Rosslare and through County Wexford, the levels of litter one sees on the roadsides are appalling. I do not blame the business people who have erected signs stating "Welcome to Dublin, please excuse our litter". My 77 year old constituent suggested that television campaigns involving important media personalities might prove useful. Until we develop the sense that litter is a problem for all of us, not just for local authorities, we will not succeed in tackling it. I am exhausted asking small shopkeepers not to provide plastic bags to people who only purchase one item in their shops but they tell me that people demand plastic bags for a packet of crisps. If we could get rid of the plastic bag at least we would only have to deal with the packet of crisps. We will not get far until the public realises it is its problem and no one likes standing around in litter. I congratulate the Minister of State on his promotion of waste management plans. They are good but one wonders when some of them will come to fruition, for example, the incinerator in Ringsend. I understand that the wind will blow its emissions towards the east, although dioxins can be virtually eliminated, but how will rubbish lorries get to Ringsend? There must be a practical approach to these matters. The landfill situation is totally beyond control and we can no longer get the space required. Incinerators are a stopgap but they will have to be introduced in certain areas because there will be no other way of dealing with waste. We must make a greater effort to recycle. The Minister spoke about educating people about recycling, which is important. Waste from the construction industry accounts for 50% of landfill rubbish. If it does not recycle more of its product it will have to pay vast sums to dump it. It is extraordinary that houses are being built with new brick tumbled to make it look old when there may be a considerable amount of old brick which could be recycled. Cost cannot be the only consideration in recycling waste, we must go further.

Waste tyres also constitute a huge amount of waste. The Minister of State may remember that someone from Cork contacted him recently asking that the retreading of tyres be encouraged. I confess to a family interest in this matter. This person pointed out that we have the lowest level of retreaded tyres in Europe - it is amazing how low it is. Truck tyres are huge and in Finland over 70% are retreaded. The figure here is 26%, in Norway the figure is 70%, in Portugal it is about 50%, in Sweden, about 60% and in Switzerland, 40%. No country is below 30% except Ireland. This is odd because as well as being very big, truck tyres are dangerous to dump. In some landfill dumps abroad, uncontrollable fires have raged underground for years because of the large number of tyres. Perhaps this should be looked at as every type of recycling should be considered to ensure that waste is reduced. Industry must look at its level of waste because of the amount of heavy goods that are dumped. Many car manufacturers are examining which parts can be made in a way that allows them to be recycled. The need to eradicate quality problems in rural water supplies is a vital part of this debate. The agreement obtained by the Minister of State to reduce the sale of detergents containing phosphates to 10% in the next two years is an incredible achievement. It is difficult to find out which detergents are low in phosphates. I eventually found out by looking at the underside of packets, the part which sits on the shelf. The Minister of State's time in office will be worthwhile for this achievement. Phosphates in detergents have contributed greatly to the eutrophication of our lakes and rivers and I have repeatedly raised this matter. Now that this problem has been dealt with we can move on to other areas, such as excess phosphate spreading on land. We have discussed this matter a great deal, yet it does not seem to have made a big difference to the sale of fertilisers. The rural and environmental protection scheme has encouraged farmers to farm in an environmentally friendly way. However, sometimes I think we are preaching to the converted. I know Teagasc is meant to carry out phosphate and nitrate testing on farms. Some farms have enough phosphates and nitrates to suffice for the next five years without adding any more. Is Teagasc actually doing this and, if it does, is any notice taken of it? Agriculture is important and the preliminary report on the three rivers project is praiseworthy in this regard. The report recommends that qualified personnel visit individual farms accompanied by farm advisers. It also refers to the need for extensive farm surveys, including a field by field risk assessment relating to nutrient application and potential diffuse pollution. It stresses the need for farmyard surveys, advice on minimising waste and slurries, soil and slurry tests, development of nutrient management plans on a field by field basis, advice on organic and chemical fertiliser management and assessment of the impact of direct animal aspect to watercourses. The latter is not taken into account enough, especially given the amount of surface water we use as drinking water. The report also recommends strategies for minimising erosion and follow-up visits by project personnel and farm advisers to assist in the implementation of the plan. All these recommendations sound expensive but they are necessary. The report on the Boyne, the Liffey and the Suir is worrying and I have no reason to believe the other rivers are any better - we know that the Shannon is a good deal worse. The environmental indicators also need to be looked at regularly to ensure we have the most up-to-date information possible. Some 39% of sewage going into our rivers and lakes is untreated, which is terrible. It is planned that urban areas with 2,000 or more inhabitants will have proper treatment schemes by 2005. This should be done more quickly and the number of inhabitants necessary for qualification must be reduced. This is essential, not just because of the quality of the water supply, as we rely on surface water for a considerable amount of drinking water, but also because of the dreadful effect it has on tourism. I have heard appalling reports from people who have visited Lough Derg and expressed their disappointment at not being able to swim there. They said the water was filthy, and I have heard nothing to suggest it will be any better this year. About 20% to 25% of our water comes from ground water. While gross pollution of ground water in rural schemes has improved, the mild to moderate reports of pollution have increased. No one wants to drink water containing e.coli, which means there is faecal contamination, either human or animal. A large number of houses in rural areas rely on septic tanks or various types of old soil treatments. Grants are being given to people to upgrade their facilities, but it is most important that good advice is taken on the siting of septic tanks. This is also an important aspect in the granting of planning permission because if there are too many septic tanks in an area virtually nothing can be done to prevent groundwater becoming contaminated. A tough line has to be taken on this and absolute health standards enforced. As far as I can remember, 20% to 25% of our water supplies come from groundwater. It is essential, therefore, that we get things right in regard to septic tanks. In regard to access by animals to water, we have to ask how important overgrazing has been in polluting water schemes, particularly in relation to sheep in the west. There have been some horrific reports of contamination of rural water schemes in places like Connemara. It appears that a considerable amount of it is faeces from animals which, because of headage schemes, have been grazed on parts of mountains and hillsides which were not fit for grazing. Headage schemes were thought up in Brussels with the best of intentions, but they did not do a great kindness to many of our mountains when they came to fruition here. We have to be very careful to look at the knock-on effects of some schemes and how they affect our environment. The Environmental Protection Agency should be given every support. Its job is extraordinarily important. Public awareness needs to be raised so that we will take ownership of the problem and not see it as someone else's problem which can be left to local authorities to deal with. It is important in dealing with the problem that we try to get some sort of esprit de corps within the population to raise awareness that our future environment depends on how we deal with the present situation. I again congratulate the Minister of State on his detergent victory. It should have been put up in neon lights outside Leinster House because it is one of the most cheering bits of news I have had for quite a while. Mr. O'Brien: I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I congratulate him on his statement on litter and pollution and on his honesty in outlining in his first paragraph that our litter pollution problem is a national scandal which is totally unacceptable and that he has made it a top priority in his Department to deal with this very serious problem. The growth and development of both urban and rural areas over the past ten to 20 years has been so massive that the volume of litter and waste has become a major problem. It is necessary, therefore, for county councils and local authorities to give leadership in this area and to take strong measures to implement the Litter Act. Fast food and take-away outlets in urban areas can create major problems, especially at weekends. Even in small towns and villages, we see litter on the streets, papers, little cardboard boxes, plastic etc. Local authorities and county councils take measures to clean up after Saturday nights and have their areas tidy by Sunday morning, but it is a shame that in 2000 this is still such a big problem. The Minister of State has made it a top priority to take measures to deal with it and make sure that both urban authorities and county councils give leadership in this area.

There are problems at farm level also. The REP scheme has played its part in improving farms that are part of the scheme. Because there are controls and inspections, these farms have to reach a certain standard. However, many farms are still outside the scheme. Plastic bags and the plastic wrap around silage bales are a major problem. In County Monaghan mushroom compost is still being dumped where it should not be, causing environmental problems in our area and for Ireland's green, clean image. Heavy rainfall can wash much phosphate off the soil into lakes and rivers causing problems. I compliment the Minister on the amount of money he has put into group water schemes in the past few years, particularly in the past year. The Minister of State, Deputy Wallace, today announced increased grants of up to 80% for group water schemes which is very welcome. The Minister for the Environment and Local Government has undertaken over the past year to implement a policy of upgrading all group water schemes, and additional massive sums of money are available for new filtration systems for group water schemes to ensure that the water we drink is of a very high quality. I compliment the Minister of State, Deputy Wallace, and the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, on their efforts in securing this money for group water schemes. The Government is to be congratulated also on the number of regional schemes provided in the past ten to 20 years. We should look to teachers and parents to educate young people about pollution and litter control. They have to be educated from a very young age not to throw litter away. An example was given earlier in this Chamber of a child taking the paper off a bar of chocolate and handing it to the mother who threw it away. This problem has to be addressed. It all starts in the home and in school at a very early age. Education by parents and teachers in schools is very important if we are to deal with this problem and reach the standards we would like to see here.   It will not be easy. Local authorities can make the rules and do their best to enforce them, but it is down to the communities at local level to see that the streets in the towns, villages and cities are clean and litter is not all over the place.   Mrs. Jackman: I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Dan Wallace, to the House. I am glad the House has an opportunity to address the litter problem, particularly as these statements have been requested by Senators over the past weeks. On a note of criticism, I would have expected that the response of the Minister of State, Deputy Dan Wallace, to the issue of litter pollution, which was the main reason for the debate, would have run to more than four pages. While I understand that there is a need to look at other areas also, that is, the areas of waste management and the quality of rural water supplies, I had hoped there would have been greater concentration on the litter problem. As I drove to Dublin today I was struck by the proliferation of plastic bags. I know there was a north-east wind, but they were on both sides of the dual carriageway, particularly on the outskirts of Dublin, hanging from the trees which were without foliage. It was distinctly noticeable today. Listening to "Today with Pat Kenny" I was also struck by the fact that week in, week out the litter problem has dominated the airwaves. I was particularly concerned by an attack on the offices of Limerick County Council. It was stated by an e-mailer that there was litter on the steps leading up to the council offices and in both cellars, which would be visible from the main street because it is a Georgian house and the ground floor is surrounded by a railing. Yesterday evening I left the offices after a meeting about roads and I did not see any evidence of litter in the cellars or on the steps. Perhaps that e-mailer visited during the evening when the offices were locked and the staff were gone and the following morning the staff would have come and cleaned. It may be that the litter which the e-mailer noticed was dropped during the night hours. I was extremely concerned at the discussion on the show, during which it was stated that the Limerick Corporation would have to fine Limerick County Council because the council offices are under the jurisdiction of the city fathers. I was amazed and the council's environmental officer was shocked because every morning the council offices are impeccably clean. I wonder when the individual saw the litter. Perhaps, as I said, it was late at night. Limerick is no better or worse than anywhere else. There is no doubt that there is litter everywhere. I have received a enormous number of e-mails stating categorically that Ireland is the dirtiest country in the world, and I would have to agree. I represented Ireland at the St. Patrick's Day parade in Emmetsburg, Iowa and I was there for ten days. The temperature on St. Patrick's Day was 20° Fahrenheit, which is well below freezing point, and there was two inches of snow. I noticed the morning after St. Patrick's Day that, without there having been a need for the local town authority to become involved, there was no litter to be seen in Emmetsburg, a town of 4,000 people which had seen an influx of 15,000 people who had to keep warm by having hot drinks and whose numbers included toddlers and the elderly. This was because the people obviously have regard for their environment, they have a sense of responsibility and they take ownership of their streets. There would have been a considerable amount of material to take away because Americans like their food and they would have come equipped since they had to stand in freezing conditions for three and a half hours during the parade. They brought their babies and their elderly with them, but they accepted their responsibilities. Even though they came from different areas, they took their refuse home with them. That is an example of how the people of the US respond to such a situation. If it had been an Irish town, one may be sure that there would have been people employed at enormous expense to the local authority, which do not get adequate funding to deal with the problem of litter, picking up other people's discarded fast-food cartons, drinking cups, nappies, etc. Having travelled the length and breadth of the Continent at different times, I am aware that there are dirty parts there too. I would not say that Brussels was the cleanest city in the world and I noticed that in many parts of Belgium people do not use wheelie bins and still use black plastic bags. Considering that Ireland has one of the lowest population densities in Europe, we should not have the problem encountered by the people of the Netherlands, where there is the highest population density in Europe, and Belgium, where the population density per square kilometre is huge also. Likewise it is difficult to clean the streets of London, which has such a huge population. Ireland should not have that problem, despite the fact that there is a major movement from rural areas to urban areas. That is creating the problem for us because people in country areas still take ownership of their refuse. However, I agree with those who point out that in bogs and areas where there is little human involvement one will find black sacks which have been thrown away, various types of littering including discarded fridges, for example, despite the fact that one can leave the latter with the local authorities who will deal with them. One will still find abandoned cookers and cars where people do not seem to have any sense of the fact that it is their environment, and their environment does not consist only of the house where they live or the school in which they are educated. People have been very critical of the education system. As a teacher for many years, I have never seen anything like the environmental education to which first, second and third level students are subjected. There are environmental studies in primary schools and in secondary school there is civic, social and political education, which places the onus on children to take responsibility and not just to always fight, shout and talk about their rights. In the school in which I taught we hounded the students aged between 12 and 18 as regards litter. I would refuse point blank to teach in a class unless I found it pristine. The reality was that when the students left the boundaries of the schools they dumped their litter outside because they did not feel that they had any responsibility for their streets. I do not know what is the Irish mindset regarding litter because our generation may never have been exposed to environmental education. We did not appear to need it. Maybe some would argue that we did not have the stuff to throw away because there would not have been the same range of products such as sweets, crisps, etc., but that was not the point - we just did not do it. Now that there is such a huge emphasis on environmental education, I find it extraordinary that students have a tendency to litter. Certainly there is a psychological problem. It is obvious that media coverage of the problem is not making an impact on the people. We must look at more proactive and innovative ways and I would ask the Minister of State, Deputy Dan Wallace, to look beyond the shores of Ireland to other countries with a litter problem in the same way the Government looks at health campaigns in Canada, for example. Maybe we should look at the US. I would not be particularly interested in looking at Europe. The Germans talk incessantly about how clean Germany is but I have travelled to a part of rural Germany with which my area is partnered and I have seen litter there too, although maybe not to the same degree. I would give full marks to the Americans. They have a scheme whereby businesses adopt a highway, which I noticed when I was in Iowa, and they make sure there is no litter. I compliment Corkonians on their sign which says "Welcome to Cork: Excuse the Litter" which I saw when travelling to a conference. Maybe that gives a jolt to the mind - it is certainly lateral thinking. We should have more innovative ways of shocking the general public into reacting and making them think. I remember about ten years ago asking a class before Easter to write to Cadburys regarding boxes for Easter eggs. I had been in Portugal around that time and not one Easter egg had a box. Everything was wrapped in cellophane, as they are very stringent about the presentation of food, but there were no boxes. The class, which was environmentally aware, asked Cadburys not to package Easter eggs in boxes. They said they did not want the packaging, knowing that when the exciting packaging was removed there was only a mini-Easter egg left. They got a curt letter in response saying that the company was not going to stop packaging Easter eggs in boxes as competing companies would produce larger and nicer packaging. It was a very negative response to youngsters who said they would be happy to buy the eggs with less packaging. There were 650 students in the school who, according to a survey, said they were prepared to buy the products without the packaging. I was very disappointed by the reaction of the company and that the students' views were not taken into account. I implore the Minister of State to ask the Minister to provide more environment wardens for county councils. I live in Castletroy and I have had e-mails regarding littering in the area, much of which is due to the development associated with up to 2,000 planning applications. Obviously developers are not doing their best to keep their sites clean. When I responded to the e-mails people were shocked that there were only two litter wardens for the entire county. The people presumed there were two wardens for Castletroy and I had to tell them this was not the case despite the fact that the greater Castletroy area has up to 20,000 people. People could not believe there were only two litter wardens for the county. Whatever the Minister says in his speech, he can write off any response from the public unless he facilitates the employment of more litter wardens by local authorities. The Minister said that 300 litter wardens are employed, which is not enough, and that nearly 8,300 on-the-spot fines have been issued with 850 prosecutions. There is a big problem concerning prosecutions. If I find a black plastic bag of rubbish in the countryside and bring it to Limerick County Council, which I would, who will end up in court? If it contains an envelope belonging to another person, they will say they did not throw the bag of rubbish away. Expecting citizens to take cases to court is out. They will not go to court and state a name found in a bag of rubbish. There will have to be changes to the law in this regard. Local authorities are very pressurised due to staff shortages and rather than expecting staff to spend days in court there should be on-the-spot fines, similar to speeding fines. We only respond to deterrents. Many times I have told people that they dropped litter and the response has been in four letter words. This is the general response when a person is stopped. In the same way one is not met with a civic response when one tells a person on a train who is smoking in a non-smoking carriage that they are in the wrong carriage. Porters and ticket collectors say they are subject to the same attitude. Therefore, there is a negative response to requests not to do things and I do not know how we will change that mentality - it will be extremely difficult. I wish to refer to an article in The Sunday Tribune, the best I have read in a long time. The author, Shane Coleman, refers to a survey by Emmet O'Briain, a sociologist in Trinity College who has examined the psychology or sociology of litter. He speaks about the analogy of a group of people sharing a flat. Everybody looks after their own bedrooms, but the communal areas suffer because people shirk their responsibility. Even the tidy members of the household do so because they resent the lack of effort of their messier flatmates. This is most interesting. Tom Kavanagh of Irish Business Against Litter is more practical, saying the law is not enforced, that people get away with littering and that education and PR campaigns are a waste of time unless they are introduced in tandem with effective enforcement of the law. I wish to briefly refer to the fact that 92% of waste goes into landfills. Nobody wants landfill sites and I ask the Minister to look at state-of-the-art thermal treatment - not incineration - in other countries. The jury appears to be out on new ways of heating rather than burning. We have discussed this at length in Limerick County Council in terms of the waste management plan which we have adopted. These new technologies will be state of the art by the time the Minister's document is put into practice. We must educate the public in other ways of disposing of waste. We can talk about composting, compacting and anything else under the sun, but individuals must get it into their heads that they are responsible for creating waste and, therefore, must take responsibility for it. Wheelie bins were the worst invention. They take everything, including the husband or wife if one wanted to dispose of them - I am being facetious. Anything can be put in a wheelie bin and that is why the amount of waste is not reducing. People who reduce waste through composting should certainly receive a reduction from local authorities in the cost of wheelie bins. Why should they pay the same amount? A woman wrote to Limerick County Council and informed it that she had reduced the amount of waste she produced by two thirds. She asked for a small wheelie bin. The council told her that she could have one for the same price as a large one. That is not proactive. However, the council does that because it finds it so expensive to implement waste management policies. I hope the Minister provides more than the few million pounds he has allocated for litter and waste management. A great deal needs to be done in regard to water quality. More funding is needed if development in high pressure zones, such as Limerick, is to be avoided. Everybody is being pushed out of the city into the surrounding villages. People cannot build around them because sewerage and water facilities are not available. Development is very difficult unless all these issues are addressed in an integrated manner. I hope this is the first of many debates because the litter problem will not go away after this debate. It must be pursued and we would be very supportive of any measures the Minister proposes to introduce.