Frank O'Rourke (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I take this opportunity to support my colleague, Deputy Timmy Dooley, and the Private Members' motion he has tabled. All proposed bin charges need to be suspended until appropriate measures are put in place to ensure that this is comprehensively dealt with in a robust manner. In our view, it is important to have an independent regulator's office in place to adjudicate on whether such increases are necessary at all and, if so, what they should be. Currently, where there is an industry that is self-regulating, it is not fair and is completely unacceptable to the public. In the past, we have seen the private sector being opportune and putting forward unacceptable increases to the public, who were already stretched to limits beyond acceptability through the day-to-day running of their lives and the other Bills that come into play on a regular basis.

No increase is fair here because people are paying enough already. We only need to look at the increases currently being paid by people for motor insurance, which is out of control, and variable interest rates on mortgages, which are way higher than our colleagues in other European countries. We are now looking at an increase in bin charges. We talk about having modest decreases in the USC. However, the modest decrease in the USC, which we all want to see coming into people's pockets to give them the power of spending in the local economies, is already absorbed and consumed by the inflated increases in the areas we have spoken about.

It is very important that an independent regulator is appointed in this area to adjudicate on the current self-regulatory practice that is completely unacceptable. It is negatively impacting on the public with massively increased charges that cannot be condoned into the future. The Government's proposal on this initiative is that the polluter pays. That is not correct in this case. When these increases were spoken about last year, we saw that the actual people who were separating their waste and doing everything properly and in a good manner were seeing their standing charge increase by 100%. That is not acceptable. What was their reward for being compliant? The reward was getting a 100% increase. That comes back to self-regulation, which is no longer acceptable. The €75 grant that was spoken about being offered is completely at odds with this and is unacceptable. It does not meet with the requirements of people who are caring for someone elderly at home or people with young families.

The other problem we have is fly-tipping and the people who burn waste in their own back gardens at the weekend or in the evening. Local authorities are no longer resourced to deal with that, as the Minister knows. This will only get worse in the time ahead if it is allowed to be pressed on with. I ask the Minister to look at this motion, put charges on hold and establish an independent office to see if increases are necessary and, if so, what they should be.

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