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

None of these people has savings available under the Minister's scheme. The bottom line is that SI 24 is not fit for purpose and that is why Sinn Féin firmly agrees with the sentiment of the motion. It was not written correctly and it will not have the impact the Minister says it will have. The best thing to tear up the statutory instrument and start again from the beginning. We should sit down with departmental officials and the relevant Members of this House in committee to design a new system. That would send a very clear signal to households that the Minister is not going to proceed with the increases in 12 months' time. There is nothing in what he or Deputy Barry Cowen has said today that will give any reassurance to families, scared by the proposed increases that were going to come into effect this year, that the very same increases will not come into effect this time next year.

Sinn Féin will support this motion and the motion being tabled by our Senators tomorrow will allow for the legal scrapping of SI 24. It would force us all to get back around the table and do this right once and for all. I see no reason to support the cooling off which the Minister has proposed and which Fianna Fáil, wrongly in my view, is supporting. On that basis, we are sticking to the position we had last week of scrapping the statutory instrument and of getting back around the table to draft proper regulations that will improve the level of recycling without fleecing hard pressed families.

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