Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

One of the things I am most proud of was to be a councillor on Dublin City Council for six years, from 1997 to 2002.

In those years, as I remember, there were very lengthy debates about waste management, bin collection and bin services. Councillors sometimes have a hard decision because the gallery is right behind them rather than at a distance. I remember at the time taking a difficult decision in favour of the expansion of our bin service to include a brown bin and a green bin, as well as a black bin. Various parties there opposed it at every turn and various other people said that it would never work, that people would never do it and that Irish people do not like recycling and are not up to it. I have found that sometimes you can deliver things in politics. One of my proudest moments is that we actually got that through and delivered green bins and brown bins. Now, we need to go further in a variety of different ways.

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