Denis Landy (Labour) | Oireachtas source

The debate is so robust, I am afraid to speak. Thankfully, my hearing in one ear is poor so I will not hear any interruptions the Senators opposite may make.

I welcome the Minister and agree with his comment that if the statutory instrument were annulled, it would be open season for the operators. Those were not his words but that was the nub of his argument. A previous speaker suggested to the Minister that research is needed on this issue. The previous Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, carried out research before introducing the statutory instrument. Based on this research and three pilot projects in three different local authority areas, 83% of citizens would be better off if the statutory instrument were implemented as intended. However, the service providers viewed the interregnum after the election and before the appointment of a new Government as an opportunity to increase standing charges.

The pay-by-weight system is the fairest available. Providers do not have a right to increase standing charges and I commend the Minister on seeing them off on that issue. I have no doubt they will try it on again.

The previous Minister specifically informed the service providers that if they attempted to change standing charges, he would rescind the other elements of this statutory instrument. The industry made its move and attempted to introduce unacceptable charges in the vacuum created by the absence of a Government. That is the nub of the problem.

I propose to delve into history a little, as Senator Coffey did. In the mid-1990s, local authorities provided an efficient and effective nationwide waste service. Staff were gainfully employed, trade unions were recognised, proper rates of pay applied and, most important, a waiver scheme was in place in every local authority area. Across the country, however, the Trots and certain elements within Sinn Féin started a protest campaign against waste charges and successfully closed down every local authority waste collection system. Yesterday, one of the leading representatives of the waste companies stated that Cork County Council's waste management service was €12 million in the red. Before the waste management service in my small local authority of Carrick-on-Suir closed, its share of the market stood at approximately 30%, with the remainder held by the private sector, and some 60% of its users were on a waiver scheme at the time of its closure. The service was closed down as a result of protests by the Trots and Sinn Féin elements. What happened to the protesters when the private sector entered the market? They disappeared and were never heard from again. Local authority waste collection services were closed down and transferred to an unregulated private sector that is cherry-picking the best areas and that refuses to provide services in rural areas. We have to fight to get it to operate in rural areas.

As Senator Reilly noted, almost half of the 13 major waste collection companies operating here are offshore entities unregulated by Revenue. Despite this, these companies are securing contracts and licences through two regional authorities and local authorities. Regulation is needed not only in respect of the prices paid by customers, although this is extremely important, but also in respect of staff in the private waste collection companies who are required to work at low rates of pay and in atrocious conditions. The industry must be pulled together and registered employment agreements introduced, if necessary by the State or by a regulator under the collective bargaining system introduced by Senator Nash when he was a Minister of State in the previous Dáil.

In 1997, the then Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Mr. Martin Cullen, transferred responsibility for waste collection to county managers because he believed elected local authority members would not take decisions on this matter. County managers determined the waste management policy that would apply in the various regions and subsequently decided - correctly because the system was impossible to run - to allow the service to be privatised. That is a little history lesson for certain Senators on whom the history of the issue may have been lost and for some genuine Senators. In this regard, I commend Senator Gavan on his bona fides. He represented workers in a previous life in SIPTU, particularly Greyhound workers in Dublin who were forced to work under poor conditions.

A regulator is needed to regulate prices, ensure uniform standards apply nationwide and provide for proper terms and conditions for workers. These three issues are paramount. We must study this issue in the next 12 months in order that the Minister or his successor are ready to act when the suspension period concludes. We should not start to review the system at that point.