Minister tells launch that communities are central to the success of anti-dumping initiatives

Denis Naughten the Minister for Communications, Climate Action & the Environment said multi-agency operations involving the Gardai, Revenue and the Department of Social Protection are shutting down rogue waste operators and waste enforcement officers are spearheading these operations.

The Minister was speaking on Friday at the launch of the Regional Anti-Dumping Awareness Campaign for the Connacht Ulster Region.

The launch comes against the backdrop of the recent explosive RTÉ Investigates programme where Donegal County Council came bottom of a league table of 30 in terms of aspects of waste management.

That programme revealed Donegal County Council was the worst performing local authority for its inspection rate of its facilities and investment in waste services.

The minister said the Anti-Dumping Initiative is targeted, not just at local authorities, but at community and voluntary groups.

"By engaging in environmentally responsible actions on a community level, people become more sensitive to the larger environmental issues that affect their local area.

"Those who actually interact with their environment develop a stronger sense of environmental community than those who do not; and put simply, they are far less likely to abuse it by mismanaging their waste.

"Communities are central to the success of Anti-Dumping Initiatives. Communities that are not prepared to surrender their beaches, their parks, or their countryside to waste criminals.

"The new awareness campaign that I am launching today builds on this and challenges those that persist in this appalling crime to take a look at themselves and to make a judgement call on the type of person that they are.

"In a world where it appears to be no longer politically correct to raise the issue of personal responsibility, this campaign challenges the dumpers by suggesting that irrespective of the multitude of ways and means of managing our waste, that there will always be those who persist simply because it is in their nature to so do," he said.