Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group)

We all know it is the thin end of the wedge.

I am around a long time and so is the Minister. As an example of what is likely to happen, I remember well the introduction of refuse charges in south Tipperary. I was at the council meeting where they were introduced and where I voted against them. In the course of that debate a Fianna Fáil Party councillor stood up, took a box of matches from his pocket and threw it across the table at me, saying that the charges amounted only to the cost of one box of matches per week. This €50 registration charge probably equates to the price of a box of matches per week too, but the point is that the refuse charges soon increased way beyond that level. Most ordinary families with two or three children were soon paying €400 to local authorities, and they will pay a great deal more under the privatised system now in place in most counties.

The suggestion that this is a once-off charge is all talk.

We know what happens in these situations. This small fee will increase over time until it becomes the €300 proposed by Fianna Fáil. It will become part of a suite of charges payable in the main by low and middle income families who are already hard pressed, many of whom are unemployed. As in the case of the household charge, there will be no waiver for old age pensioners, social welfare recipients or people with huge mortgages. Ordinary families will be crucified by having to pay a whole suite of charges, including this one.

Let us not pretend this charge is a one-off. The Government should tell the truth in this regard. While this charge is currently set at a low rate it will increase to a substantial amount payable by ordinary people who are already paying for a crisis, the creation of which they had no hand, act or part in.

See this speech in context