Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

Greyhound's bin charges have increased from €16.50 to €24.47 in 18 months. Panda is increasing annual charges by 8.4% less than a year after it increased its general waste bin charge by 12%. You would expect to see the rest of the waste collection companies following suit soon. The privatisation of our bin service is bad for households but it is also bad for workers. We saw the wiping out of a steady unionised workforce across the country. This is a failure of privatisation. People campaigned against this during the 2000s because we knew this would happen. People were locked up over this. Dublin City Council set up a group on remunicipalisation.

It referred the issue to the IPA, which researched the topic. The results of that work were released last January. It is clear there are legislative barriers to remunicipalisation. A working group has been set up here in the Dáil and we are requesting that this matter be examined and scrutinised in the environment committee.

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