Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I have just returned from the funeral of a very lovely man, Mr. Owen Gallagher, a friend and fellow activist. I once again pass on my sympathies to his partner, Carolann, and his family. I raise it under this particular question because I first met Owen when he was a bin man working for the council in Bray. He was fighting against the then drive to privatise waste collection services. He was very passionate, along with his colleagues, in fighting the privatisation of waste collection services. The other feature of Owen's life was that he was an absolutely passionate environmentalist all of his life. The privatisation and the introduction of charges at the time was framed as being done to some degree to improve the environmental situation, but part of Owen's motivation in fighting the privatisation of waste collection services was that he believed this was not true, that the opposite would happen, that charges would ratchet up and ratchet up, and that it would not improve but would worsen the environmental situation. I believe Owen and his colleagues were proven right. When we consider the introduction of charges now by private waste companies for brown bin collection, we really see how the worst fears of people like Owen Gallagher and those who fought the privatisation of waste collection have turned out to be right.

Does that lead the Government to consider the growing campaign to re-municipalise and bring waste collection services back under public ownership so they can be managed in an environmentally sustainable and beneficial way?

See this speech in context