Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

There is a group that did exist before I was appointed, namely, the price monitoring group. Its job is to examine the market and see if changes are needed. I have asked the group to reform. It includes an economist, people from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, and consumer experts. They have been asked to play the role of mystery shopper to find out what the prices are on the market and to recommend if we need to put in any changes. Although it is a private market, we have collection licences and there are conditions on those. One is not allowed to offer flat fees for black-bin waste. One must charge less for collecting recycled waste than for collecting brown-bin waste. We can make changes where they are needed. I will examine the issue carefully and see what we can do. In the meantime, any householders concerned about the cost of their food waste should have a look at stopfoodwaste.ie, which provides a very useful set of suggestions for how to minimise the volume of food waste being produced in a house.

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