Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

Others have opted for a combination of a standing charge and a charge per lift, while the humble prepaid tag also has its place.

The point must be accepted that waste charges generally have increased in line with the exponential increase in the cost of waste management. We have moved from a position where we relied on a large number of poorly managed landfills to one where we are rapidly putting in place modern waste management infrastructure.

Each individual local authority has the power, where it is the service provider, to make a waiver scheme or to make appropriate arrangements with the private sector, where it is not. In this way local solutions can be tailored to local circumstances with proper application of the subsidiarity principle. In this regard, I again remind the House of the sentiments of the then Minister, Dick Spring, in 1983 in proposing a legislative basis for waiver type schemes. He explained that "decisions must be made on the basis of local knowledge and experience". I fully concur with this view. Local authorities are best placed to decide what is needed to address the differing circumstances that present to them. What is more, they now have the resources to allow them to do so.

Local authorities are now in a far better financial position than they have been for many decades. This is due in large part to the establishment by this Government of the local government fund. For 2005, I was glad to be in a position to notify local authorities of record levels of general purpose grants from the fund. This year, these discretionary block grants, which authorities can use as they see fit, will amount to a staggering €817 million.

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