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3
May 2005
Greens
Sceptical of Government Promise on Waste
The
Green Party has expressed scepticism about today’s announcement by the
Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche of a ‘get tough’ policy on waste
which promises new regulations for the remediation of illegal dumps.
The
Green Party has pointed out that hidden in the small print of today’s
announcement is a direction to make it easier to move waste from one region to
another.
Green
Party Environment spokesperson, Ciarán Cuffe TD, said today,“The
Minister
appears to be talking out of the side of his mouth on this issue. On the one
hand he is saying that he does not want an ‘unnecessarily restrictive
approach” and on the other he wants “robust actions”. Action requires
resources as well as words and I am not convinced that the Minister is providing
enough resources to implement the existing legislation.”
“The
Minister has also stated that this policy direction will provide for the removal
of all hazardous waste from illegally deposited waste. Does this mean that other
waste will simply be left in situ?”
"It
is telling that little has been done to clean up the illegal dumps in the
Minister’s own constituency of Wicklow, the garden of Ireland.”
Green
Party Councillor on Wicklow County Council, Deirdre de Burca has called on the
Minister to clarify whether these regulations will apply to illegal dumps that
have already been discovered and investigated.
The Green Party councillor claims that unless the new regulations can be
applied retrospectively, they will have little impact on the network of
substantial illegal dumps discovered in County Wicklow over the past four years.
She argues that one of the biggest illegal dumps discovered is on Cement
Roadstone's land at Blessington in West Wicklow.
Cllr.
De Burca claims that it is difficult to reconcile the new punitive approach to
illegal dumping promised within the Minister's new regulations with his
tolerance of "what can only be described as a very generous and potentially
profitable arrangement for Cement Roadstone on whose land approximately 100,000
tonnes of illegal waste have been found".
Cllr.
De Burca has also questioned whether the new regulations will provide for
independent monitoring by the Office for Environmental Enforcement of the
investigation of illegal dumps where the local authority has been involved in
some of the illegal dumping.
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