I raise the issue of households where an adult family member, as a result of illness or old age, must use incontinence wear. This results in the bin being packed to capacity when collected every two weeks. It means the family is inevitably charged extra as the bin is deemed to have excessive weight. There is frequently insufficient space in the bin for other waste. People are constantly worrying if they do not have their account topped up that their bin will not be collected and they will have nowhere to dispose of waste for two weeks. It encourages illegal dumping and possibly burning of these products. There may be questions on how this type of waste should be safely disposed of. I am not sure that landfill is entirely suitable.

There were plans to introduce a support payment for families in this situation back in 2018 when Deputy Naughten was Minister for the environment. It did not happen then. As Minister with responsibility for this, what plans are in place to address this? It is affecting quite a number of families.

I am not aware of plans but if, as the Deputy says, the original proposal was from the Department of the environment, for which I have responsibility, I will go to my own Department to see if there is any mechanism or waiver system which we might be able to consider for such circumstances. They are very specific but the point the Deputy makes is a valid one.