Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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This is a very healthy discussion, teasing out the issues here.

The IPA report highlighted the issue of illegal dumping in particular. We do not have details on what it actually costs to collect that waste. That cost, or the cost across different cities, is not included in any of the reports we have. I reckon it is quite substantive. It is local authorities that collect that waste, not the private companies.

I put it to today's speakers that there is a compelling argument for one waste collector in any local authority area, or possibly throughout the country. When we raised this matter with the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, recently, he said:

Altering the structure of the market, whether by municipalising waste collection services or adopting competitive tendering, would take several years to implement. Regarding the barriers to overcome, these include the legal issues that must be considered. Among these are constitutional issues, the fact that primary and secondary legislation would be required, competition law, state aid rules, procurement law, and waste collection permit expiry dates, which are up to five years from now.

The real question relates to what Mr. Carrothers said about political will. There was political will to privatise our waste collection services two decades ago. Legislation was changed to allow that. There has to be political will to look at all that legislation and reverse it. That is what has to be done. It was indicated by the Taoiseach that the Government will not look at the re-municipalisation of waste, which was raised last week. We have to look to the future a little and down the road to what sort of campaign-----