Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Everyone on this committee wants higher levels of segregation, recovery and reuse. The issue is how we get there. Given the tightness of time, my first question relates to what we are to make of the EPA conclusion that, even with this legislative change, it is likely, if tested, that Dublin City Council's re-entry into the domestic waste collection service and the exclusion of private operators would be deemed anti-competitive by the courts. That is clearly a strong statement by the EPA, which did this work.

I would be interested in hearing the view of the witnesses on that.

The other issue is what this will cost. The witnesses have probably seen the presentation industry representatives will make later. It states remunicipalisation would cost between €1.3 billion and €2.7 billion and the service would be more expensive to run thereafter. The question then is who would pay. This is a major re-nationalisation of a sector.

The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission report was referred to. I looked at this because I have done some work in the circular economy and, as a result, I have looked at some of these studies. The CCPC comes out very strongly in favour of a national waste regulator to deal with what Councillor Doolan has described as the wild west and all the regulatory issues. It sets out what the regulator would do, for example, create geographic franchises and mix markets so that more costly routes would be combined with more profitable ones. It proposes a number of standard regulatory powers. That is what the CCPC finally came up with, rather than remunicipalisation.

We have a national waste and circular economy strategy, which is of recent origin dating from 2022. Did the witnesses make a submission on this proposal at that stage and, if so, how was that received at that point when it would have been necessary to look down the barrel of some of these potential costs or regulatory changes?