Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)

No one ever reads the Minister's website except myself. He should change his statistics. I discovered from the Progressive Democrats website that the party had made a promise during the local election that it would introduce a similar national waiver scheme to that outlined by the Labour Party tonight. There is a real need for it. There is much controversy over waste management and there are many fundamental issues involved. In my town, all the parties got together and dealt with the issue at a local level, as a community should do. However, there were hard men outside the door. One night, they burst in during a debate. The mayor, a member of the Fianna Fáil party, was wearing a yellow shirt and tie and he was accused of being an Orangeman. I think the protest was led by Sinn Féin that night. There were marches on our streets, with hundreds of people giving out about it. Eventually, logic won out. The logic is that we must have a waste management strategy and that everyone should pay according to their means. When a system exists where someone only pays for putting out the bin, senior citizens reduce their use. They are the best at recycling in Drogheda today, with many of them putting out the bin once every six weeks. They are very happy to do that.

The problem arises with large families or where many people are living in a home. Many people in that situation and those on low incomes cannot afford to pay. If one cannot afford to pay, there should be a system in place to deal with that. It is a tenet of Progressive Democrats policy and it is something on which we all agree. I welcome the Minister's reference to that in his statement. I ask the Minister of State to write to all local councils to state what the Minister actually said, which is that where the service is privatised, the local authority can make an arrangement with the service provider to have a waiver system. Many councils are not aware of that. If that is clarified, it could make a significant difference on how councillors view the issue. I think it was in Limerick that the opposite view was expressed by senior counsel.

I also want to address the question of a regulator. The Minister spoke about bringing in a regulator to regulate the price of refuse charges. I would not be happy about that as I believe the best regulator is competition. If a company has a monopoly it will apply to the regulator and will get its price increase. The perception is that the regulator gives price increases which consumers do not believe necessary. A regulator for refuse charges is a bad idea. We should encourage more competition and more privatisation.

Illegal dumping has been mentioned and we are aware of a national strategy on it. One of the problems is that the EPA, which has much responsibility for our waste management and for the enforcement of illegal dumping regulations, is not accountable to the Dáil. We need to make the EPA accountable to the Dáil. We can bring representatives of the EPA before a Dáil committee, but they seem to be a law unto themselves. The EPA can also do what it likes in regard to the issue of the incinerator in Cork. It does not need to have regard to public opinion.

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