Mr. Daithí Doolan:

Thank you, Adrian. I thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to make a presentation on this important issue. The remunicipalisation of the domestic waste collection service, or more easily put, bringing the bins back into public ownership, really is a win-win situation. We hope to highlight today why this should be done and how it can happen. I will give a broad overview while my colleagues from SIPTU and Fórsa will give more details, including on the circular economy and how we can take the waste management service back into public ownership.

The bin collection service was privatised in Dublin in 2012. This was done by a simple majority vote of Dublin city councillors following a court case in which the main private companies forced local authorities in Dublin to open up the market to privatisation. Despite our outright opposition to the privatisation of this essential service, we fully understand that the world has moved on, and so have we. We do not want to simply turn the clock back to Ireland 2012 and return to Dublin City Council collecting bins. Too much has happened and too much knowledge about climate change and the environment has been gained since then. We want to design and deliver a new 21st century waste management strategy for a modern Ireland. This service can be comprehensive and accessible, environmentally friendly and cost-effective, good for workers and, importantly, good for householders as well.

The first challenge to the current privatised system came ahead of the 2019 local elections. At the time, a trade union campaign, "More Power to You", asked prospective councillors to support a number of objectives including the remunicipalisation of the waste collection service. This campaign gathered momentum and cross-party support.

Following the local election, a motion committing Dublin City Council to the re-municipalisation of the service was passed. A cross-party working group was set up, which in turn became a formal subgroup of the city council’s environmental strategic policy group. The group included cross-party membership, trade unions and management. I was elected as chair and have remained chair in recent years. A key piece of work was an independent piece of research carried out on behalf of the group, which was done by the Institute of Public Administration, IPA. The terms of reference were clear. A comparative analysis was to be done to compare Dublin City Council’s method of domestic waste collection, namely the operation of an outsourced, "side-by-side" competitive model within the local authority area, with the typical single provider method of collection in operation in similar sized European cities. Additionally, a legal analysis was to be carried to outline: the legal and regulatory context in which domestic waste collection operates within the State; practical steps Dublin City Council could take to begin to re-enter domestic waste collection and to de-commodify the collection of domestic waste; legislative changes that would have to take place in order to provide for the re-municipalisation of domestic waste; and the process in a similar State whereby the domestic waste collection service was successfully re-municipalised.

The report turned out to be hugely important. For the first time, independent research confirmed what we already knew. In this study carried out by the IPA, similar sized cites, including Copenhagen, Oslo, Salzburg and Stockholm, were compared to Dublin. It confirmed Dublin is the wild west of Europe when it comes to waste management. We have all but abandoned responsibility to the private sector whereby the main driving force is not environment, service or sustainability, but profit, profit and more profit. Dublin is out of step with the rest of Europe. It is now clear that change must happen. Re-municipalisation is happening right across Europe - not just of waste services but other services, which include water, housing maintenance and housing construction. The report confirmed that 11 companies were registered to collect waste in the Dublin City Council area. Dublin is the only one of the five cities surveyed to have a fully privatised service of waste collection, which is where the problem lies. According to the IPA:

In all other cities there is a strong element of public involvement, with waste either collected by the municipality directly by publicly owned companies, or with publicly owned companies ...

Crucially, the report found:

To the extent that a trend is observable from the four comparator cities and their respective countries the trend appears to be towards greater municipal involvement.

The report highlighted that Dublin is out of step, that this is not the norm across Europe and things can change for the better.

Earlier research commissioned by the then-Department of Communications, Climate Action and the Environment published in 2018, six years after the service was privatised in Dublin, was critical of the private market in Ireland. It suggested that the current market is not supporting the interest of the consumers or Government environmental objectives. This is crystalised by the fact that according to the IPA 32% of households had not received a brown bin despite it begin a legal obligation to do so, and the householders are paying for it. Privatisation of the service has been a failure. It has particularly failed the householder. The cost of the service continues to increase. Even brown bins are now being charged for, which flies in the face of the regional waste management strategy. Brown bins were kept as a free service by private companies in order to reduce volume of compost waste entering the general waste service. The profit motive overrides the industry’s commitment to waste management and the environment. Only last week it was announced that the household recycling bin collections could be on the way up again and that the cost would be increased. Waste collection companies are set to increase the cost of collection simply because the public is bringing cans and plastic bottles to their local deposit return centre. Once again, the private companies profits are more important our commitment to protecting our environment. Even when the public is doing the right thing, it is punished by private waste companies and hit again in the pocket.

While canvassing Belfast in the recent Westminster election, I had reason to see up close how a comprehensive system can be put in place. Some 90 miles up the road from this room, householders have their recycling, glass, cans, brown waste and black bin waste all collected as part of the kerbside collection and the total cost is covered by household rates. This is all easy, accessible and cost effective. This style of service can be introduced here in Dublin and other cities and towns across the Twenty-six Counties. A comprehensive waste management scheme under the control of the local authority will remove the profit motive and will be driven to protect the environment, protect decent pay and conditions of the workers and put money back in the householders' pockets.

How can this be achieved? Remunicipalising the waste collection service requires legislation that will allow local authorities to re-enter the market. We firmly believe this is not only possible but is, in fact, better for everyone and essential for the environment. Currently, there is a Leinster House cross-party working group, of which I am sure committee members will be aware, which has focused on the remunicipilisation of the waste service. It has carried out important work and has been a huge support to us.

Our ask of the committee is to introduce said legislation, encourage more Dáil and Seanad representation on the Leinster House working group and formally establish a task force overseen by the Department to facilitate the passage of the legislation. I hand over to my colleagues from SIPTU and Fórsa, who have been a huge support to us in providing direction, guidance and their experience within the working group. I thank members for listening and for their time.