Waste management strategies in Ireland have failed lamentably because of a "parochial approach" whereby local authorities were expected to look after refuse in their own areas, the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, said yesterday.
Speaking after he issued a policy paper aimed at local authorities but advocating "a regionalisation approach" to waste management services, Mr Dempsey denied it was to facilitate the creation of 20 "superdumps" and a shift from landfill to incineration. It would allow other options to be considered because of the economies of scale that could be achieved by a regional approach.
The policy was designed to make landfill the last option for waste disposal and not to ensure one particular solution, he said.
He accepted "a legacy of bad management" of landfills meant people could not be blamed for objecting to landfill proposals. But environmental standards would in future "have to be of the highest order" in a new era of tight regulation.
The Government was committed to providing significant resources for a modern waste infrastructure but it would be premature to estimate costs at this stage. Mr Dempsey said he did not wish to pre-empt any decision on where or when a large incinerator may be located in the Dublin area.
