David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to share the timeslot with my three colleagues, Deputies Quinliven, Ellis and Mitchell. I will take five minutes and the Leas-Cheann Comhairle might let me know when my five minutes are up.

I move amendment No. 1:

To insert the following after “basis that the levels of such will be progressively reduced”:

“— end ‘side-by-side’ waste collection systems;

— increase the number of recycling centres and the range of items accepted;

— legislate to establish an independent regulator to oversee the waste collection industry; and

— introduce a franchise model of waste collection as a first step towards remunicipalisation of domestic waste collection, so that councils can insist on standards of delivery including affordable prices for households and waiver schemes as well as greater employment and contract protections for waste disposal workers.”

It is important we face up to the challenge waste management presents to us in the context of climate action and the need for us to face up to our environmental responsibilities in a way this State has not been doing for some time.We can no longer simply brush under the carpet the problem of waste management by burning or burying the problem, which we have done for far too long. That approach has been fundamentally flawed. We need to view waste as not something we need to get rid of in the cheapest far-off places. We need to change our relationship with waste and see it as something that is of value and something that is a resource. Only then, will we as a society have a desire to stop burning and burying it and to start reducing, reusing and recycling in more ways.

Sinn Féin is totally opposed to incineration. It causes air pollution and the emission of toxic fumes. There is also an increase in the volume of traffic generated by the transportation of waste to and from incinerators. One other aspect of incineration is that after burning, the remaining ash, which is usually 20% to 30% of the mass of waste, still needs to be disposed of in landfill. A further approximately 7%, known as fly ash, is classified as toxic waste which cannot be disposed of even in landfill and requires further treatment. In addition, building an incinerator involves a large capital cost. Once built, it must be used on a continuous basis, which will lock-in incineration as the primary method of disposal for generations to come.

We warned against this when there were plans to build incinerators in Dublin ten years ago. One got the go-ahead from a former Green Party Leader and the then Minister with responsibility for the environment, John Gormley. Prior to leading his party into government with Fianna Fáil, he campaigned against the proposed incinerator. In fact, the Green Party Leader was one of the most vocal and prominent voices against the Government's incineration policy. Yet, once in government with Fianna Fáil, he oversaw the very same policy he once fought against.Today we are dealing with an issue of legislation about which the Green Party, despite having held the ministerial office with responsibility for the environment for four years, declined to do anything.

The Environmental Protection Agency has too much power and there is not enough accountability. Its ability to override the wishes of the ordinary people and the mandate of local politicians and local councillors cannot be allowed to stand. At the same time, we need to change the model of waste that Fine Gael as well as Fianna Fáil in government with the Green Party, so eagerly pursued. We need to treat waste as a resource. To do that, we need to take private profit out of it and that means taking it back into public ownership and control.

Sinn Féin is committed to putting waste collection back under the control of local authorities. The current privatised system is expensive, bad for the environment, and severely lacking in controls and regulations. We cannot have profit supersede the environment. We are the only state in Europe with a completely privatised waste collection system and the only EU state persisting with side-by-side competition for waste collection.

I was first elected as a councillor in 2004. I am not sure when the Minister of State first entered politics. There was a massive public campaign against privatising waste collection at the time. When the Government first brought in bin charges, they were brought in at what was called a nominal value. In Waterford it was initially £40 a year. We made the argument that, once a charge was brought in and the service became about profit, the charges would go up and up and that eventually the service would be privatised. Fianna Fáil said that was not the case and that this was not its intention. Martin Cullen was the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government who championed this measure. Throughout the process we were told that privatisation was not on the agenda and that costs would not increase. That is what happened. There is now no local authority in the country providing this service.

We have ended up with multiple operators, in some places six or seven, passing each other out on different days. They are going into housing estates to collect bins from different doors, creating more traffic congestion. All the while, the cost for consumers and householders has increased. The average cost for waste collection is now between €300 and €400 a year, depending on where in the country a person lives. We are not rewarding people for recycling more, although people are doing so. People are treating waste more as a resource, as I have said. They use the green bin and the brown bin but, despite the fact that households are recycling more than ever before, they are paying more than ever.

We also have multiple operators making profit, going in and out of housing estates, and doing what they do. We are committed, in the first instance, to ending the practice of side-by-side competition. We support the analysis carried out by Dublin City Council which suggests moving towards a franchise system. This would be a stepping stone towards full public ownership of waste management services. We need to do all of this to ensure that we do right by the environment and set the very highest standards in waste management policy.

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