Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank People Before Profit and the Anti-Austerity Alliance for tabling the motion and also for accepting the amendment. I am delighted with that. The Minister is not here unfortunately. He did say that he had acted swiftly upon concerns and that what is really at issue here is the lack of education and that a period of freezing of charges is necessary in which to educate the public. The Minister did not act quickly. He was made to act by People Before Profit, the Anti-Austerity Alliance, Independents4Change, by Sinn Féin and then by Fianna Fáil. That is the new Government working and we forced a change. I am not happy with the change because I come from the city of Galway where we had a wonderful service and we achieved the most fantastic recycling rates. As a result we were punished and the system was privatised.

Reference was made to research on the best way to proceed. I disagree with my colleague here with regard to pay by weight. We had a wonderful system in Galway where people were encouraged to act in a certain way. Indeed, the people led us. There was a threat to bring in an incinerator and the people of Galway were galvanised, not by the an attitude of not in my back garden, but by an attitude of wanting a better system for everybody. In a pilot project we reached recycling rates of 70%, which have never been met anywhere else in the country. On a regular basis we diverted 56% of waste from landfill. That was with positive encouragement where the people led us. The councillors were led by the nose and, more importantly, the officials were led by the nose. However, the policy of this and the previous Government has been was to privatise the refuse service. I do not agree with this and we should go back to the local authorities running the service.

With regard to the amendment put by the Government, it is significant that the Minister, Deputy Coveney has not referred to the legal capacity to place a cap and whether that is possible. The Minister has avoided the issue. He has provided for a review after 12 months but he has not told us what is going to happen in the meantime.

I will now turn to the absence from the Chamber by the former Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly. I have looked at the statutory instrument and at the briefing document. The former Minister told us at the time that there would be a significant reduction in charges for households. He went on to say that big families would suffer but he did nothing to address that aspect. We had a waiver system. I would happily support the motion.

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