Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I know we are not addressing it as it has been ruled out of order. Why was it ruled out of order? I would have thought it was obvious for the Government to use the opportunity of this legislation for the Minister to legislate on the back of the Duffy-Cahill report and not allow another incident like what happened in Clerys. Will the Minister address that question?

I spoke to Deputy Collins earlier, who is withdrawing his amendment in favour of the Minister's. I see they are both on the same page but on the other hand I wonder what is the point of the legislation at all. The Minister is giving a very generous period to suspend the implementation of the rules about limited and unlimited companies; it is extraordinarily generous and I assume that when she refers to the "uncertain" period in which we live, she is referring to Brexit. We expect the Brexit negotiations to be completed and the changes to be on the road within two years but the Minister is allowing five years for companies to make up their minds about what way they want to restructure, declaring themselves unlimited and not showing profits and accounts in this country. I have a real problem with that. I strongly argue that if we allow this amendment to go through, there has been no point in this exercise and the Bill has been negated.

I refer to an issue we raised last summer in this Parliament regarding bin charges and specifically the standing charge being raised by something like 200% for citizens for bin collection throughout the State. When it became a big political issue on the floor, we discovered a group of companies were unlimited and registered offshore. We considered whether waste management companies have an issue with the amount they could charge per lift or per standing charge per year as they were declaring poverty and argued they were nearly broke. We could not find out their financial condition when we looked for it. Panda Waste Management had moved to the Isle of Man, The City Bin Company was in Jersey, Oxigen was in the Isle of Man, Killarney Waste Disposal was in New Zealand, Country Clean Recycling was in the British Virgin Islands, as was Clean (Ireland) Refuse and Recycling, and Greyhound - one of the biggest operators - was in the Isle of Man.

I see a real problem with allowing this to continue, even taking into account the argument that we are in uncertain times. The Minister might clarify whether she is referring to Brexit or the general uncertainty of the financial and capitalist world in which we live, which seems to continuously throw everybody into turmoil. The Minister is allowing five years of delay or suspension, so she might not be sitting in the chair opposite. That may be in the next Dáil or perhaps the one after it. God knows.

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