Anyone who is still listening to this debate will need psychiatric treatment

The recent debate on the incinerator had its lighter moments, which I have extracted from the 10 hours or more of debate. For your enjoyment, here they are, taken from Hansard. Parliamentary debates at their best!

Connétable A.S. Crowcroft of St. Helier:

The Parish of St. Helier got very close to setting up a trial plant for a particular Jersey-based company that claimed that they could take all of their household waste in black bags, have a material separating facility to take out the valuable bits, like aluminium cans and so on, and then treat thermally the remainder of the waste and produce a plastic-type pellet, and I was going to bring some along today but they are in my office.

Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire:

The answer is we cannot give you an answer because we were not given the answer; we asked the same question you are asking me, through the Chair. We tried it through the chair, we tried it through the wardrobe, we tried it through the bed, it did not work.


Senator F.E. Cohen

The design of the Energy from Waste building is a simple box with a wrap around steel envelope and glazed gable ends. The roof structure is an express steel lattice frame placed outside the external envelope of the building. Rather like the Fly Tower for the Glyndeborne Opera House the express structure makes for a far more interesting distant view of the building.


Deputy J.A. Martin

There will be two green hills faraway, according to the Minister for T.T.S. As long as you have your glasses on and you are sitting in the car deck and you cannot see out of the window from the boat, you are all right.

Connétable S.A. Yates of St. Martin:

It looks all sort of ethereal, transient, like an ice palace. Unfortunately, it is massive. In fact, if you look on the front page of that, you will see that it is higher than South Hill. I do not mean Mount Bingham; I mean the cliff at South Hill. When you drive round, the height of that cliff is where the height of the incineration plant roof will be, and I am afraid it is a monstrous carbuncle. When my granddaughter in a couple of years' time, 3 or 4 years' time, says: "What is that, Papa?" I say: "That is the recycling plant." "Well, who told them to put it there?" I do not think, that I should be able to say: "Well, I was partly to blame, because I voted for it." I am afraid that is not going to be part of my legacy to my granddaughter.


Connétable P.F.M. Hanning of St. Saviour

I know the Minister for Planning and Environment said that it was a good design, it had good detailing and materials were good, but the Gherkin is a good design, it has good detailing and the materials are good, but it is huge and you cannot disguise the fact that it is a huge building.

Deputy S.C. Ferguson of St. Brelade

I listened to the Constable of St. Martin just before lunch, and he talks about the growing economies in China and India and so on. In actual fact, the economies there are getting extremely wobbly with the current credit setup. Vietnam has imploded, and they reckon that China and India will probably follow suit.

Deputy J.B. Fox of St. Helier:

We have the finest growing tomatoes in the back streets of St. Helier due to our composting, but, unfortunately, we are not able to get rid of all our green waste and therefore use the facilities and, indeed, the other waste facilities that are available.


Deputy J.A.N. Le Fondre of St. Lawrence

I hope you are all feeling refreshed after a good day yesterday and looking forward to more enlightened debate this morning. I have managed to resist the temptation up to now to use the rather worn statement about a group of politicians talking a load of old rubbish, or perhaps I should say about a load of old rubbish, but that rather denigrates what is an essential debate that we have been having since yesterday.

Deputy P.N. Troy:

We need adverts in the newspapers saying: "Get your home composting kits. This is how you operate. This is how you carry out home composting." We could take a lot of the waste out of the stream.

Connétable J.L.S. Gallichan of Trinity

Well, Sir, anyone who is still listening to this debate will need psychiatric treatment, I think

Senator P.F. Routier

Fortunately my Sunday was brightened up by Wimbledon. We had a really good, lengthy Wimbledon final. I think this is turning in to be one of those occasions, having a lengthy debate.

Deputy J. Gallichan of St. Mary:

I thought Wimbledon was last week but I am sitting here at the net and I am seeing baseline volleys from the Minister for Transport for Technical Services being returned and then resoundingly responded to by the Environment Scrutiny Panel. It is quite clear to me that from either of those quarters I am not going to get the match point that I need that gives me the clear decisive solution I am looking for.

Senator P.F.C. Ozouf:

Some Members have said that this debate is a bit like a Groundhog Day movie. This morning, or rather was it this afternoon, after 12 Noon, the Deputy of St. Mary likened this debate to a tennis match. I like the Deputy of St. Mary very much. She is a very thoughtful Member and her contribution was, as usual, well considered, but I am afraid that I did not quite get her analogy of a tennis match. It seems a long time ago, the weekend, but I certainly enjoyed the marathon of the Wimbledon final, 5 hours of really good sport at its best.

Deputy J.A. Hilton:

I am sure Members can recall when an English M.P. (Member of Parliament) made a comment - I cannot remember who it was now - about eggs and decimated the U.K. egg industry. Edwina Currie, correct. I would not like to see the same thing happening to our potato industry.

Connétable M.K. Jackson of St. Brelade

The technicalities of the proposed Energy from Waste plant have been well ventilated, Sir and I am not qualified to add more

Deputy G.P. Southern of St. Helier

There were moments yesterday when I was suffering from extreme existential angst. The whole point of life seemed to be negated, and indeed there were moments this morning when I relived those moments once more in one particular speech.

The Connétable of St. Mary:

I will not be too long, I will be about as normal as I normally am when I make speeches. [Laughter] Three proverbs as such spring to mind on this debate: necessity is the mother of invention; where there is a will there is a way; where there is muck there is brass.


Senator S. Syvret:

This is one of those rare occasions, probably less than 10 occasions I can recollect in nearly 18 years, when I have approached this debate genuinely torn and undecided as to which way I should vote. What do we do then? What to do? Well, as the proverb has it about asking directions to Dublin, you get told: "I would not start from here."


Deputy G.C.L. Baudains of St. Clement:

First thing this morning I was beginning to understand how an incinerator felt, having been fed with so much rubbish. In fact, I was thinking of having my own breakdown.

Deputy F.J. Hill, B.E.M., of St. Martin:

Yesterday the Chief Minister referred to comments made by the former Deputy of St. John about getting on with it and I think we all concur with what the former Deputy of St. John was saying. However, what we did not hear was what the former
Deputy of St. John was asking us to get on with.

Senator T.A. Le Sueur:

Sitting here this afternoon, after 10 hours of debate, I must say my mind wondered temporarily and I was thinking about the poem of The Walrus and The Carpenter; not for any particular Members but the opening line: "'The time has come,' the Walrus said, 'to talk of many things'."


Senator T.J. Le Main

Sir, we are in a crisis and I have heard Members like my good friend the Connétable of St. Helier in front of me. shipping to France. Well, I hope he has got more confidence than me about dealing with the French. Well, I can tell I would not take a chance dealing with the French or doing a business arrangement with the French or the French Government. Nice people all of them but, by gosh, can they not change their minds on various issues? They do not take long to blockade ports and roads and set vehicles on fire and do all sorts of things. So I am very, very nervous of hearing things like that.

Deputy G.W.J. de Faye:

I regret to say I do not have an energy output chart with me in order to answer that question accurately. I would have needed notice of that.