Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

What the Minister does not accept is just how greedy the people concerned are and what they were willing to do. They were trying and willing to ratchet up charges by between 50% and 200%. All we are getting from the Minister is a promise that it will not happen for 12 months, but there is no promise that it will not happen in the future. We have been down this road before; it happened 15 years ago when we were given all of those promises that there would be waivers, that it would not be so bad and that it would not cost people so much, but it all turned out to be lies. That gives rise to the question of whether we believe charges will be introduced in 12 months time. Is it the case that the Government is colluding right now with the bandits in the private waste companies who wanted to rip people off to the extent I have outlined to ensure they would stay in business rather than that we would have a fair waste collection system? I do not trust the Minister. I am sorry, but I do not. The reason I do not trust him is that in 2012 the former Minister, Mr. Phil Hogan, chose the more expensive model - he knew it was the more expensive model - because the private waste companies had told him to do so. Why did the subsequent Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, bring forward a ridiculous statutory instrument that triggered the current situation in the first place? The reason is he was lobbied by the private waste companies.

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