Frank McDonald, Environment Editor, chronicles the bungling that lies behind the waste mountain.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, has promised "firm action" to tackle what nobody any longer can deny is a crisis of mega proportions - how to deal with the rapidly-increasing volumes of waste now being generated in Ireland every year.
It is now nearly four years since the regional waste management plans were first drafted. And force majeure was required to have them all adopted when local councillors balked at the inclusion of incineration, even after participating in junkets to inspect similar facilities abroad.
In the meantime the waste mountain has loomed larger and larger. We don't even know precisely how large it is because, incredibly, the most recent year for which official figures are available is 1998 - and they were based on an assumption that illegal dumping was minimal.
Last month, in its latest review, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that every man, woman and child in the State was producing an average of 600kg of waste a year, an increase of over 60 per cent since the "Celtic Tiger" boom started in 1995.
A more recent report by economic consultants Dr Peter Bacon and Associates, commissioned by the company Celtic Waste, estimates the total volume of household, commercial and non-hazardous industrial waste arising this year at nearly 2.8 million tonnes, far ahead of earlier projections.
Indeed, the regional waste management plans now finally being implemented were based on assumptions that such a volume of waste would not be reached until 2013. If Dr Bacon is right, this will be exceeded before 2004, 10 years sooner than projected.
Even allowing for what he regards as "excessively optimistic" assumptions about the growth of recycling, his report predicts a shortfall in landfill capacity this year of more than 940,000 tonnes, a third of the waste requiring disposal, rising to over one million tonnes next year.
From 2003, it predicts the available capacity will be inadequate even to deal with the volume of post-recycling household waste. "In these years, there is a real fear that there will be no access to landfill for commercial and industrial waste, given available capacity."
It points out that the 45 per cent recycling rate provided for in the regional plans is three times the EU average and no fewer than eight times the volume of waste recycled in 1998. It actually equates to the total amount of household waste now being produced in a year.
In the unlikely event that this unprecedented level of recycling is achieved, Ireland would also have to find marketable uses for 1.7 million tonnes of recycled materials annually. Otherwise, as the Bacon report warns, they immediately become waste again.
Even if we achieved a more modest 25 per cent recycling rate, well in excess of the EU average of 14 per cent, and put in place all the thermal treatment facilities proposed, the growth in waste means the landfill capacity required in 2012 would be similar to this year.
Because of intense opposition to incineration, no thermal treatment plant is likely to come into operation until 2005 at the earliest. So landfill needs will be even greater, at least in the short term. "This is the key finding from our analysis," according to Dr Bacon.
But opposition to the development of new landfills, with local authorities markedly reluctant even to identify potential sites, means there is little likelihood of sufficient capacity becoming available in the next few years. Hence the waste crisis we are facing.
The Bacon report describes this critical deficit of capacity as "imminent" and says it has already begun to impact on commercial and industrial waste. This, in turn, has led to a growth in illegal dumping, such as was uncovered in Co Wicklow last November.
In the case of a two-acre site used for the illegal disposal of hospital waste, Wicklow County Council has estimated that the clean-up cost would be at least €3 million - or up to €20 million if the material has to be incinerated - and has successfully brought a High Court case against those responsible.
Evidence was given that the land-owner, Clifford Fenton, was receiving £90 (€114) per load from Dublin Waste.
Properly treating the hospital waste would have cost £450 (€571) per tonne, amounting to £11,250 (€14,285) for an average 25-tonne load.
If tough action is not taken against "serial culprits" for illegal dumping, the Bacon report warns, the economic benefits of operating illegally would continue to outweigh the risks of being caught. As a result, legitimate players would be deterred from investing in infrastructure.
More fundamentally, "for as long as it is not recognised that waste management implies costs no matter how it is handled, then implementation will be a major problem", especially in the absence of public consensus on the way forward in dealing with residual waste.