Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy should hang on a second. I have a short period in which to make my points. If they do not suit the Deputy, he can reply to them tomorrow when he is winding up the debate.

This was a waiver scheme in the context of a publicly delivered waste management scheme by the staff of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, in the context of an overall charge of £150 at the time. The Labour Party councillors voted against this. Now they are trying to go back into history and return to the stage when this type of proposal was before them. It is somewhat rich for them to say now that they would love to see this being reintroduced, when they did not have the courage to vote for what they knew to be commonsense, fair and equitable at that time. The irony was that the principle of it had been introduced by one of their own in Dáil Éireann in 1996. It is all very well to introduce legislation with all the fine words and great intentions when one cannot deliver on the ground. That was the constant theme of the Labour Party councillors' behaviour in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council in the period 1999-2004.

The next thing that happened was Labour ascended to the chairmanship of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. On 11 January 2005 a number of resolutions were passed. Among them was a requirement that the Government introduce the waiver scheme. There was nothing concrete in this, just a general idea that the Government should introduce a waiver scheme. Also, every Labour and Fine Gael councillor supported the passing of the resolution. A sophisticated electorate will consider that these parties' disavowal of this vote rings hollow. Nobody will believe that on the one hand Labour was against the waiver in 1999-2001 etc. and only voted in favour of all of these measures in 2005 because somebody put a gun to their head. It is also disappointing that in all that period so much progress has been made with waste management in Dún Laoghaire, with the introduction of bring centres, the green and grey bins, waste packaging regulations and progress has been made within the green business network and on every step of the way the Labour Party refused to vote in favour of any of these measures. It is no use re-writing history and seeking to go back in time. Matters have changed and people will not believe there is any sincerity in this motion.

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