Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am very happy to speak on this Bill but I have a number of concerns about it. I am aware that the former Minister, Deputy Kelly, proposed this legislation as one of his last projects in the Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition. Having faced much opposition at the time, this proposal was put on the long finger and was due to be reviewed and a public awareness campaign created around it. Now, here we are, more than a year later with no review or no public awareness campaign. There would have been a number of concerns about the public awareness campaign into bin charges., but because that campaign never happened, the ordinary working public did not have the opportunity to raise these concerns. Therefore, I will raise them on their behalf.

In very rural areas like my own constituency of Cork South-West, there is only one waste provider, and in many cases it is KWD. It provides a brilliant service and I will not take that from it. The problem is that it will may well sell the company. If it does, a new provider may come in. The proposal is to allow providers to set up their own prices, and that will allow those same providers to exploit their market as they will have a monopoly in these areas. Competition does not exist in rural Cork, as in many places in rural Ireland, so the proposed pricing mechanism will not work there.

A number of industries and areas in our country are over-regulated but it is important that we have greater regulation of this industry. That would halt the rising level of illegal dumping around our beautiful countryside. Young families, carers of the elderly or the sick, all of whom use diapers or nappies, will suffer increased pressure due to the pay-by-weight proposal. The Department must clearly set out what support these demographics will get to cover this very expensive proposal, one that seems to hit those who are already struggling once again.

With respect to the local authority dump sites, we are dealing with the dumping and illegal dumping of waste that is destroying our environment. As a councillor in County Cork, I vehemently opposed the closure of some dumps, where their opening times were reduced from six days a week to two and half days a week. Unfortunately, it went unheeded. Now I am being told by people involved in the Tidy Towns and community councils in the greater Schull and Castletownbere area, where these major cuts took place at local authority dump sites, that in the past few years they have collected 2,700 bags of rubbish on the roadside and 500 bags of rubbish on the beaches. These are volunteers such as the chairman, Mr. Tom McCarthy, in Schull, rural social workers and Tidy Town volunteers. That is terrible. They will be further cases of that inflicted on people, whether it will be in Schull or Castletownbere or other places throughout rural Ireland.

We need to find ways to incentivise people to recycle and get rid of their waste in an efficient way. I am not wholly sure that some of these proposals are the best way to do it.

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