Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit for tabling this Private Members' motion, which Sinn Féin will support, and the Independents 4 Change for their amendment, which we will also support. Listening to the debate over the past number of days has been a little bit surreal. The dramatic hike in proposed bin charges is indisputable. These are not rumours but actual increases in charges, about which we have heard from real customers. In the case of Greyhound, it is a 76% increase, in the case of Thorntons, it is 66%, in the case of Greenstar, it is 80% and in the case of Citybin, it is 126%. These figures come from real families who have given us real figures based on their usage. The most dramatic increase has been in the standing charge. In the case of Greenstar, the increase in the standing charge is 50%, in the case of Thorntons, it is a 108% and in the case of Greyhound, it is 238%. These extra charges have flowed directly from the new regulations introduced by the former Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, in January. While I accept it was not the intention of the Minister for SI 24 to lead to an increase in charges, that is very clearly its effect.

The surreal thing about the debate, however, is the idea that a 12-month suspension is the most effective solution to this problem. I listened to the Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, on the news earlier today and have listened to him very carefully in the House this evening. He spoke about the need for people to have knowledge of how this new pay-per-weight system is going to operate and to build public acceptance of it. During Leaders' Questions today, the Taoiseach made some very revealing comments. He talked about people thinking more carefully about the way they deal with refuse and the disposal of waste. He said that pay-by-weight would result in people examining what would be put into the black bin and that they would pay less as a result of using the black bin less. There is an assumption at the heart of the approach of the Government and, unfortunately Fianna Fáil, that huge numbers of people do not use the bin system properly and put the wrong kind of material in the wrong waste and that when pay-by-weight comes in and they understand the error of their ways, they will start using the bins properly, meaning savings will be made.

The four examples I have quoted are four people to whom I have spoken. I have looked at their usage over a 12-month period and have compared the exact cost under the new regimes from the four companies. However, these are also people who are already recycling all of their recyclable waste. They all compost additional waste to take it out of the bin system. For all four groups of people, there will be no reductions available at the end of the 12-month cooling off period about which the Minister has spoken. Two of the customers to whom I referred use Thorntons and Greyhound and already pay by weight. While Greyhound is not increasing the per kilo pay per weight charge but is only increasing the standing charge, Thorntons is doing so. The increase on its per kilo charge for pay-per-weight for the black bin is 40% under the proposed increase and under the brown bin it is 10%.

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