Senator Gerard Craughwell- speech from 5 Mar 2021

Goir maith agat, Dailas Goeheerleach, Aarath Thafalte Róad, you're welcome to the House Minister. I want to compliment my colleague Senator Wall and his colleagues for bringing this important bill to the House. And we've heard about the Tidy Towns groups and the various other groups that work really hard to keep our towns, cities, villages and rural areas clean and free from litter. However, I live right beside one of the busiest roads in Ireland, the M50, and just within a quarter of a mile of my house, I've been out walking, I walk every day now, I'm trying to lose some of the old Christmas whatever, and within a quarter of a mile of my house, I found over three days, bags of clothes discarded on the side of the road. These bags of clothes were discarded on a road that is never free of traffic. There is always somebody on that road. Always. So whoever threw the clothes out had some neck, that's all I can say. The one thing I feel about Senator Wall's bill is I think it should go further. And Senator Cummins touched on the issue when he spoke, and that is about the technology that's now available, drone technology and various other sorts of technology. And when it comes to committee stage, I will bring forward some amendments. Senator Fergal Quinn, for example, brought through a bill through second stage and to committee stage on drone technology. And he pointed out that drones are now being used by criminals to go into housing estates, fly the drones over houses, fly down the back of the house, check and see if there's anybody in and if there's not, they break into them. But drone technology can also be used in the area of managing dumping and illegal dumping. I live two and a half kilometres from a major recycling centre in Ballyogan, and the fleet of traffic going in and out every Saturday and Sunday is something to behold. But these are people who care about the place they live in. They bring their rubbish, they bring their recycling stuff to a centre. There are two issues I want to touch on before I sit down. One of them is we need greater education on the whole area of dumping, recycling, civic responsibility, all of that. And the second one is we really need powers given to the local authorities that if somebody is caught, they need to be brought through the legal system and it needs to hurt. It needs to hurt them where it hurts people most, in their pocket. So, Minister, I greatly appreciate you not opposing this bill. And again, I want to compliment my colleague, Senator Wall and his party for bringing this one forward. And finally, Senator Byrne's comments, as well as Senator Black's there, on the legalities of it. I agree with everything they've said. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.