Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Seanad Éireann:

notes that: - Ireland has a privatised waste collection system with a small number of very large operators; in many urban areas, there is significant competition for the market with the result that in some areas, multiple bin lorries from competing companies will travel the same streets; in other areas, market failure arises with no service provision and in other parts of the country, there are monopoly-like operations whereby households face no price competition nor price regulation;

- the current system produces unnecessary duplication, and contributes to increased carbon emissions;

- there is no national regulator of the waste sector, a lack of transparency over the profits made, and practices within the industry;

- illegal dumping and littering are an ongoing scourge, and our municipal waste recycling rates remain too low at only 41 percent, well below our European Union (EU) target of 55 percent by 2025;

- local authorities are spending an estimated €100 million per year cleaning up illegal dumping; further notes that: - the publicly owned Bord na Móna Recycling operates waste collection in parts of Leinster and north Munster servicing over 135,000 customers but intends to now sell this business;

- the 2014 EU Concession Directive allows for tendering by the State or agency of the State for services of general public interest including waste management; calls for: - re-municipalisation of waste collection as a public service and amendment of the Waste Management Act 1996 to allow local authorities to have a single tender for waste collection;

- the Government to stop Bord na Móna from selling its waste management business which should be retained as a public asset and used to develop a National Recycling Company;

- local authorities to increase the provision of public bins and civic recycling centres, and underground waste bins in urban centres to reduce street clutter;

- the Government to immediately streamline the process agreed with the Local Government Management Agency on the use of CCTV cameras by local authorities;

 the introduction of a bin waiver scheme to support low-income households and those with additional medical needs.”

I thank the Minister of State for coming into the House today. We in the Labour Party believe that Ireland needs a serious overhaul of how waste is collected and regulated across every county in this country. The privatised system of waste collection is not working. It is not working when there are pockets of this country, particularly in the Leinster region but right across the country, that still do not have a waste collection service. Collection services here in Dublin are at 92% but should be at 100%. The privatised system of waste collection has not worked because the promise of competition has failed. We see out in Dublin 15 a single operator hiking up prices because it can get away with it as there is no competition. In other areas, we have multiple bin lorries traipsing after each other with all of the congestion, confusion and diesel emissions that go with that. Do any of us really believe that competition is truly compatible with addressing the environmental concerns of our communities? The privatised system of waste collection is not working when private bin collection companies are allowed to cream very significant profits from bin collection while local authorities have to foot the bill for everything else, whether that is the bring centres, illegal dumping, composting or other recycling facilities.

Crucially, the privatised system does not work because it does not allow for the necessary investment in waste management in this country. The Labour Party believes there needs to be serious investment in how waste is collected here in Dublin and right across the country, including in underground bin collection systems, shared waste collection points, more bring centres and systems where households can actually compost. We need to look to the likes of Barcelona, The Hague, Rotterdam and many other European cities where these systems have proven possible and ask if we could do the same here. It is hard to see local authorities investing in that infrastructure when we have a two-tier system whereby private operators get to generate a profit from charges to households while local authorities are left to deal with all of the rest. We understand that local authorities are spending around €100 million each year dealing with illegal dumping and littering alone.

The fifth reason that privatisation is failing is that the waste market is no ordinary competitive market. As the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, identified in its 2018 report, waste operators need to operate like a natural monopoly in order to be viable. We are already seeing this, particularly in parts of Dublin, where one company, Beauparc, has an estimated 55% share of the waste market. This has enormous implications for pricing and the prices charged to households. It also has serious implications for the State. It creates an overwhelming over-reliance on one company, with all of the risks that are associated with that. It is like depending on the banks for a vital public service but having it in private hands and, of course, when a company like that fails, it becomes everyone's problem.

Earlier today we had a very interesting presentation to the Oireachtas waste management group,a working group involving Deputy Darren O'Rourke and a number of other TDs and Senators, including myself.We had a representative of the European Federation of Public Service Unions who is a member of a Norwegian trade union before us to talk about the failure - the bankruptcy - of a really big waste operator in Norway, which led to the remunicipalisation of that service back into local authorities because, in effect, households and local authorities were left in the lurch. When private operators fail, it is not just their problem, it becomes a problem for households and all of us. We must ask ourselves if we want to become overwhelmingly reliant on a private operator when there is no proper regulation in place.

I hope the Minister of State is aware of it, but it is important to put the information on the floor of the House, so I draw his attention to it. We are looking at the prospect of the big operators becoming even bigger because Bord na Móna, a semi-State company, is proposing to sell AES, which is a subsidiary company, and it is looking increasingly likely that Beauparc will purchase this company. This has all sorts of implications both in making Beauparc an even bigger player in the Irish market, but also in terms of a semi-State company selling a vital resource and service effectively into private hands. We must ask the question: if the collection of waste is both a private problem and a public problem, who is the current system designed to benefit? It currently benefits the big operators and their profits. It is certainly not benefiting households in terms of where that money is going. It should be reinvested in waste management. We have very serious concerns about the current market and the current model of bin collection in this country and we want to see an overhaul. We want to see a move away from the Wild West situation where anyone who meets very basic criteria is granted a waste collection licence, to one where one company is contracted to collect waste in the city on a service concession basis.

We want to see a move away from the frankly bizarre system whereby we see all sorts of obligations now imposed on waste collectors through the Bill put forward in 2022, which we very much supported, in broadening out of obligations on waste collectors regarding brown waste. However, it does not have real teeth. There is no proper regulator or oversight of waste collection. It is a great example of how there was a good idea but it is simply not implementable, which is the case with the brown waste collection, in particular in Dublin's north inner city, but also in other parts of the country, where they do not have bins but rely on bags. There is simply no way of being able to separate food and garden waste because customers do not have bins. There is no solution in place at this point in time for that. We will not see the private operators investing to ensure that there is a solution because why would they? Nor do we see the local authorities-----