Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-28-Speech-3-130"
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"en.20040128.10.3-130"2
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"Mr President, it has indeed been a long, hard road. I welcome the outcome of the conciliation talks and I should particularly like to thank our rapporteur, Mrs Corbey, for her excellent work and understanding of the issues. As an Irish Member, I believe we have benefited from what has been known as ‘the Irish amendment’. It seems a long time since I tabled an amendment for a derogation – not from the targets, but from the timetable – for Ireland, Greece and Portugal and I thank colleagues for their understanding.
We have to get the balance right between ambition and realism when it comes to the matters before us. I cannot speak for Greece or Portugal – their own Members will do that – but my own country certainly does not have an infrastructure in place to be able to meet the targets within the timetable that was required of other countries, although our Danish colleague has suggested that it is not ambitious enough. This is a balance which I really welcome. There is nothing to stop others being more ambitious in achieving delivery. I thank you sincerely for your understanding of the Irish position on this issue.
As an island nation, Ireland imports 80% of its packaging material and has a very small indigenous recycling possibility; we have a scattered population. Demographics, infrastructure, size and isolation make it very difficult for Ireland to meet the same targets and deadlines as other countries. We were way behind when this started and over the last five years have almost caught up. The extra time we have now been given will hopefully allow us not to look for special treatment after 2011, and that has to be our ambition as a country. We in Ireland must achieve these targets in terms of managing our packaging waste and waste in general. At the moment we depend too heavily on exporting our waste, because we do not have the infrastructure in place to do so locally, despite a great catch-up over recent years.
The recovery issue and the judgment of the European Court of Justice really do not impact on Ireland as we have no recovery or incineration facilities at the moment and will not have for some time to come. No doubt there will be an appeal, but I support that for those countries for which it is relevant.
Again my thanks go to the rapporteur and to all colleagues for their particular understanding. I welcome what is before us here this evening."@en1
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