Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

The EPA audit of waste in 2001 showed up the complete sham of a policy over which the Government has stood for years when it reported a complete failure to significantly reduce waste or to put effective recycling programmes in place. All we had were gestures and posturing. The latter were particularly represented in the so-called "Race against waste" television advertisements when, quite fraudulently, householders, who account for only 15% of waste going to landfill, were portrayed as being responsible for the waste crisis in this country. It was only recently we discovered that a crony of the Minister, to whom he paid hundreds of thousands of euro of taxpayers' money, was partly responsible for that advertising campaign.

If I had been presented only with the Labour Party motion, I could support it in so far as it goes. However, it does not go very far. Deputy Gilmore correctly attacked the undemocratic amendments to waste management structures introduced by the then Minister, Deputy Cullen, in 2003. The problem did not arise in 2003, however, it first emerged 20 years earlier in 1983 when the former and unlamented leader of the Labour Party, Dick Spring, introduced the possibility of implementation of waste and water charges. During the period in question, there was a crisis of national and international capitalism and the Labour Party, in conjunction with Fine Gael, decided the working class should pay to extricate the system from crisis in which it had become mired. This was at the same time when billions of euro were being salted away, untaxed, in offshore accounts by millionaires, speculators and the rest of them. Working people always recognise a sham and a scam when they see it. They reacted from the beginning against this double tax policy and that opposition continues. They fought against it relentlessly and I was proud to have been part of the leadership of a fight against an aspect of that local taxation in the mid-1980s during the anti-water charges campaign when we forced the Government to retreat and abolish them at that stage. If we had not and the huge campaign of opposition and boycott had not achieved that victory, what would households now be paying in terms of waste and water charges combined? At least €1,000 would now be demanded. In 1996 there was even a sewage charge in some counties, a charge to have the toilet flushed, no less. That was how far it was going. The agenda is, of course, to ratchet up waste charges relentlessly and to bring in water charges. If that were done every household would quickly face a charge of €1,000 for what in reality would be a new local tax. Communities in Dublin have reacted against this tax and that will continue. Unfortunately, when we brought this fight to a head in 2003, and 21 decent citizens were sent to prison, including myself, Labour, Fine Gael and the rest of them gave cover to the Fianna Fáil Government because they did not support that campaign. We could have brought down the tax at that stage if we had received genuine support right around the country.

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