Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On 30 April this year, the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, was appeared before the Oireachtas committee. In response to questions about this, he said that people will have a lower volume and lower weight in their bins, that the majority of waste collectors now charge by weight or volume, rather than a fixed fee, and that the cost of waste removal should come down. This reflects what most people would understand and would have expected in relation to this. At the same time though, the Minister of State must have been aware that his Department had given a commitment to work with stakeholders, to monitor and review the impacts of the DRS and its possible effects on kerbside collection, with a view to ensuring, inter alia, that the DRS does not lead to increased household waste collection costs. The commitment is to make sure costs do not increase and we welcome this. The Minister of State said that he would expect them to decrease.

The Irish Waste Management Association, IWMA, seems to understand that as a protection of its status quo and that it points to a commitment from the Minister of State to a mutually beneficial outcome in relation to this. I welcome the fact that the Minister of State, Deputy MacNeill, is saying that the Government position is that there should not be an increase in costs. The question then is: how will the Government ensure that is that is the case, when the industry itself thinks it has a commitment from Government to the contrary, or at least a subsidy, if there is not to be an increase passed on to customers? At the same time the Minister of State came to the committee on Tuesday and said that it was now inevitable that costs would increase. I appreciate that the Minister of State does not want to negotiate in public here, but customers want to hear an assurance from Government that their waste collection charges will not be increased as a direct result of the introduction of the DRS.

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