Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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Over 20 years have passed since bin charges and the privatisation of refuse collection were introduced. All of our warnings about what that would mean have come to pass. We were defeated in the campaign against privatisation but everything we said has happened. The waivers went, the charges went up to a point where people are now faced with paying over €300 a year, we had full-scale privatisation and a collapse in workers' conditions, recycling levels have plateaued at the level of 2010 and have not increased, one third of households still do not have access to brown bins and the incidence of dumping has increased. It has been a disaster for workers, households and the environment where you have multiple bin trucks on different days going into the same estates. It makes no sense for anyone apart from the profiteering private companies.

There is a growing movement for remunicipalisation of refuse collection, with trade unions and multiple councils, including Dublin City Council, calling for that. Legislation is needed. I do not want the Minister for State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, to shirk this and put it back on the councils. The Government needs to take action so this can happen.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Deputy Murphy touched on the fact that performance of the system as delivered by the private sector speaks for itself. It is failing by any objective measure in terms of rates of recycling, coverage of brown bins, the perverse situation with side-by-side collections and the impact of that on efficiency and emissions. The system is failing. I commend the work of the working group set up by Dublin City Council. I know a number of other councillors, including those in Fingal County Council, have supported the call for re-municipalisation. We are getting mixed messages from Government in terms of the measures that are needed to make that happen. Could the Minister of State spell this out?

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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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.

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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Like all my colleagues, I call for the remunicipalisation of bin services in our city because this is one of the issues raised most regularly with us on the doorsteps. While I might disagree with some of the narrative about how we got here, I do not disagree that the way forward is certainly not clear. The Taoiseach has indicated that this is within the power of the local authorities. With a very weak local government system, though, we know this is less likely to happen.

We had a unique position in Dublin City Council in that there was no privatisation. Effectively, the council withdrew from the market and sold its list to one provider, without the permission of the people on that list, by the way. It is clear here that the local authorities have the ability to go back into the market, but this should be done with regulation and with the support of the Department.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I thank the Deputies for raising this issue. In Ireland, with the exception of one or two municipal districts, local authorities have all but exited the household market because, in most cases, they could not compete with the prices charged by private entrants. The obligations on local authorities in relation to collecting household waste are set out in the Waste Management Act 1996, as amended, and, in summary, provide that, "Each local authority shall collect, or arrange for the collection of, household waste within its functional area." The obligation to collect or arrange for the collection of household waste shall not apply if: "an adequate waste collection service is available in ... the local authority's functional area", "the estimated costs of the collection of the waste would, in the opinion of the local authority, be unreasonably high", or "the local authority is satisfied that adequate arrangements for the disposal of the waste concerned can reasonably be made by the holder of the waste".

Local authorities are responsible for municipal waste collection and waste management planning within their functional areas. It is open to the chief executive of any local authority to exercise his or her executive function in relation to waste collection to re-enter the waste collection market as direct service providers if they so choose, either alongside existing permitted service providers or subject to making arrangements to replace those providers.

The focus of the Minister, Deputy Ryan, is on achieving our challenging EU recycling targets, such as achieving a municipal solid waste, MSW, recycling rate of 55% by 2025. Seeking to alter the structure of the waste collection market now could be counterproductive to the achievement of those targets. We need to work with all stakeholders to achieve those targets. As they provide the service directly to consumers, waste collection companies are ideally placed to assist in increasing segregation and recycling by both households and commercial premises.

Altering the structure of the market, whether by municipalising waste collection services or adopting competitive tendering, would take several years to implement. Regarding the barriers to overcome, these include the legal issues that must be considered. Among these are constitutional issues, the fact that primary and secondary legislation would be required, competition law, state aid rules, procurement law, and waste collection permit expiry dates, which are up to five years from now. A comprehensive public consultation would also be required, as would the agreement of local authorities. There would also need to be significant capital expenditure by local authorities to prepare for waste collection services. A regulatory impact analysis would also be required, including a cost-benefit analysis to assess the costs and benefits to such an approach. Equally, undertaking this endeavour would likely lead to legal challenges by industry, including on constitutional grounds. The industry might also threaten to withdraw the household waste service and disengage with the process, with potential environmental pollution due to no waste being collected, which could also have consequences for other waste streams, for example, the collection and management of commercial waste.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Are copies of the Minister of State's reply available for everyone? It is practice to have a copy for everyone.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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Yes.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Go raibh maith agat. Gabh mo leithscéal. I call Deputy Murphy.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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How long do we have?

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Half a minute.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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Right. Regarding the point made by Deputy McAuliffe about exiting the market, these markets were artificially created by the imposition of charges and then tendering out to private services. This is what happened. In terms of the answer from the Minister of State, it is kind of unclear. On the one hand, he kind of points towards the councils and suggests that they maybe could do this, when there is a very clear report from the IPA, commissioned by Dublin City Council, that states legislation is needed. On the other hand, the Minister of State says we need to do all these things, but he will not make a policy commitment. Will the Government do this? Will it commit to investigating these things the Minister of State has said need to be investigated so we can have remunicipalisation?

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I would like to see the joint committee pick up on this issue. The Minister of State has set it out. For me, it was spelled out that there is an ideological fixation, whether it is in the Department or in the Government, which has resulted in setting out hurdle after hurdle. This is not an insurmountable issue. Based on the performance of the existing service, it is clear it is not delivering, is not going to meet the targets and needs to change.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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What we have to do here is set the principle, and this must be done by the Government, that waste collection must be remunicipalised. Very important issues are at stake here. One is the overseeing of waste management. Waste has a great effect on pollution, water quality in our seas and rivers, and the spread of microplastics, not to mention the waste we export for other countries to deal with. We need public management of waste for the environment as well and I would like to hear this from the Minister of State.

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State has crystallised the argument. He said there is nothing to stop Dublin City Council or any other local authority from re-entering the market. Then, he produced a litany of reasons it should not happen. The officials in all our local authorities hear this. They hear the Custom House saying why this cannot happen rather than why it can. We should have more devolved local democracy. We should allow local authorities to make these decisions. They should be decided locally. For more than 200 years Dublin City Council collected the bins. It decided to withdraw that service and it should be empowered to return it.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I completely agree that this should be discussed at the joint committee. I do not think we have enough time here to work it all out. Several different things arise. The first thing concerns what exactly remunicipalisation is. Does it mean that a council hires workers directly, buys bin trucks and goes back to where it was in the past? Does it mean it would outsource the collection to one particular company, so there is competition for the market rather than competition in the market? Will a tender be put out? What exactly are we trying to do?

Second, what are we trying to achieve? What is the problem we are trying to solve in the market now? Several Deputies raised issues. They are worried that we are not going to meet our recycling targets. We are currently meeting all our recycling targets. Our next targets are due for 2025, and I fully expect we are going to meet all those as well. The other question, then, is whether the charges are too high, if we are paying too much for bins and if it would be cheaper if they were remunicipalised. Exactly what problem we are trying to solve should be written down and should be considered. Deputy Collins said that we need to work out what the principle is. We absolutely must do so. I think we need to agree what problem we are trying to solve, where we are trying to get to, what remunicipalisation is and how we want to go about it.

As I said, chief executives in councils can decide they want to run their own waste collection services, if they wish to do so. They would, however, be running that in parallel with the existing private companies. They would be competing with the private operators. It is another question if we say we want to stop private operators from collecting waste. The Deputies know that in the past the Dublin local authorities got together and attempted to prevent private operators from collecting waste. They were legally stopped and told they did not own the waste householders put out and if householders wished to pay a private collector to collect their waste, they could.

There are different things in play here. If we want to change that situation I referred to and set up a situation where it is illegal for householders to hire somebody else to take away their waste, even if that is cheaper than the local authority, then we will need legislation. We would need to discuss this issue at length. There are many problems involved. I outlined them all. They are not imaginary problems. Previous Ministers have tried to do this and have not succeeded.