Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

We understand that a significant number of legislative changes are required to be put forward. I am sure Senator Wall will indulge me while I go through them. Under the Waste Management Act 1996, there is no specific obligation on local authorities to collect waste because of the number of disapplications that exist in the legislation. Under the Competition Act 2002, it is difficult for a local authority to effectively grant a contract to a single operator. We know from the 2009 case taken by Panda against the four Dublin local authorities that there was a challenge with regard to moving to a tender for a single operator. We believe that the EU concessions Act and the recognition of waste collection as a service of general economic interest is crucial to ensuring that our legislation can be brought into line so that local authorities across this country can issue a single tender to ensure that waste collection can be collected across the whole of a local authority area so that we do not see cherry-picking, and to ensure there is a control over prices and that, ultimately, whatever money is generated from charges can over the longer term be recycled into proper waste management systems in this country and not into the arms of a very small number of operators.

Finally, in recent years, trade unions and some political parties have been campaigning for this. In some ways, we are hugely grateful for the work of SIPTU. I am also very grateful that my colleague, Pat McCabe, is here in the Gallery with us today. He is working alongside other unions such as Connect and Fórsa, among others. They are talking about working conditions in the sector but also warning about the dangers and risks of the system we are walking ourselves into at the moment. We are concentrating even greater power in the waste management sector in the hands of very few. In fact, Beauparc is owned by an Australian bank and vulture fund. The question must be asked: do we want that for our country? Do we want that for a vital service in our cities and urban areas?

Great credit must go to the More Power To You campaign, and also to our colleagues in Dublin City Council who have spearheaded a campaign to ensure that Dublin can be at the forefront of those changes in the future. They requires us in the Legislature to make those legislative changes. We need to see them here. Our motion is the start of that.