Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

A key issue at the moment is that there is a lack of clarity for households. I listened this morning to the Taoiseach describe the waste permit mechanism as some grand scheme of oversight. In fact, it is more like a box ticking exercise. The permit or licensing system needs to be considerably strengthened. The Fianna Fáil motion notes that sudden and unexpected increases in the cost of waste collection will create a disproportionate burden on low income families and must be avoided but the motion does nothing to address the issue other than relying on the market being regulated. The second aspect of our amendment relates to the introduction of a national waiver scheme for households. Any such scheme should involve minimising or segregating waste. An interdepartmental committee was established some years ago to try to devise a waiver system Three separate reports were provided to Government but no decision was made. They need to be published.

I accept the need to reduce waste. My constituency has one of four landfills in the country. We see daily convoys of trucks carrying waste not only from different counties, but different provinces. The road system was never designed to carry these types of convoys. Good environmental practice would see waste disposed of close to where it is produced. Ironically, while we have one of four in the country, there is not even a single recycling facility in the constituency. The incinerator will pose the same problem for communities along the route. Policy drives behaviour and reliance on competition to regulate price will mean a continuance of multiple operations in some housing estates in urban areas until one company drives the other out of business. In rural areas, there simply will not be the competition because of the dispersed nature of the population. It will not be a question that there will be a cartel but households will be invited to take it or leave it.

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