James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I commend Deputy Dooley as our spokesperson on this area on tabling this motion on this vital matter. As I am sure is the case with all parties in the House, Fianna Fáil is fully paid up to the polluter pays principle and is very cognisant of our obligations both moral and legal in making sure that it is indeed the polluter who pays. We are fully aware of the targets that we signed up to as a country, as well as the moral obligation on all of us to support them. However, the experience has differed from that. There has been an exploitation of users. The opportunity was taken by commercial operators to increase charges when it presented in the past. That kind of charging, overcharging and complication of the marketplace has unfortunately been a feature that we saw in evidence just 12 months ago. It is regrettable that the past year has gone by and we are having this debate again. It does not appear as if the ground has shifted very much in terms of an education policy, an outreach programme or a public information programme that we might have expected in the meantime to try to engage with those operators and with the public in order to avoid déjà vu12 months on. I believe the date is now set for 1 September. It continues to slide out.

This morning, the offices of some insurance companies were raided. I think there was cartel-type behaviour being discussed and suspected. While I would hesitate to allege that anybody in the waste industry participates in such practices, we do know that there are some colourful operators within the waste industry. There are rag-and-bone men and many of them have various different patterns of behaviour. One of the items in the motion seeks to increase the resources of local authorities. Unfortunately, the environment section is often the least resourced section of every local authority. That is in terms of fly-tipping, as my colleagues have spoken about, right up to the high-end commercial operators and enforcement. If a landfill operator decides to break the rules and throw an extra load in at midnight or even in plain daylight, it is often very difficult to go after the operator because the authorities lack the resources that are needed.

The idea of a regulator is eminently sensible. It is needed. The more fragmentation and complication of the marketplace and the greater plethora of offerings, the more likely it is for there to be customer confusion, obfuscation and people getting duped by operators. While it seems sensible on one level to operate per lift or per kilo with flat charges of different offerings, it has been seen in other markets, such as in utilities, health insurance and banking, that switching does not really happen.

Inertia comes into the system. The more complicated that system becomes, the more difficult it is for the consumer to navigate and, ultimately and unfortunately, the supplier wins out because they are the ones that benefit from that inertia. Regulators have worked well in other markets. The Health Insurance Authority regulates the health insurance market. There is less regulation in banking but, belatedly, a switching market is now in place. This would lend itself very well to this kind of complex offering in the waste market.

See this speech in context