Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. I am often accused of talking rubbish in here but today I am literally going to talk about rubbish and the impact on our local communities.

I thank my Labour Party colleagues for introducing this motion, in particular, Senator Sherlock, who has led out on this. I also refer to my Labour Party colleague, Councillor Kevin Donoghue, who has led on this on Dublin City Council in recent years. I never met anyone who was so animated about the future of waste management as that man. In July 2019, Dublin City Council passed a cross-party, composite motion calling for the remunicipalisation of household waste services. A cross-party working group was established by the council to consider how this might be advanced. Among the group's recommendations was a suggestion that DCC's executive would provide funding to conduct research to support the development of a new roadmap for waste management in the city. I have the report here. It was published in January 2023 by the Institute of Public Administration and is on this exact topic. The report, titled Research in respect of the remunicipalisation of waste services in Dublin City Council, reviews the approach to waste in Dublin through a comparative analysis with the waste collection approaches pertaining in four other European cities. One of the findings of the report is that in 2022, 11 companies were registered as having permits to collect waste in the DCC administrative area. Four of these companies: Greyhound Household, Key Waste Management Limited, Pádraig Thornton Waste Disposal Limited, and Pandagreen Limited, between them accounted for almost three quarters of the market. One of these companies, Greyhound Household, which along with Pandagreen Limited, is part of the Beauparc Group collects 55% of domestic bins.

The report also found that Dublin is the only one of the five cities surveyed with a fully privatised system of waste collection. In all other cities there is a strong element of public involvement, with the waste either collected by the municipality directly by publicly owned companies or with publicly owned companies managing the services but tendering among private operations for kerbside waste collection.

Another issue that was raised in the report is that illegal dumping is not a major issue in other European cities but it is an issue here in Dublin. Illegal dumping, as opposed to littering, is not perceived to be a problem in the comparator cities. Waste is collected from all households or can be brought to civic amenity points. DCC indicates that 3,400 tonnes of illegally dumped waste was collected in Dublin city in 2020. As part of our motion we would like to empower Dublin City Council and other local authorities to now use the powers available to them to provide CCTV to tackle illegal dumping. My colleague, Senator Wall, outlined this proposal. Illegal dumping is a scourge. It is actually hard to believe that we are an outlier in this area, given how prevalent it is. I do not think any of us has driven through Dublin or other major cities without seeing illegal dumping. It is an entirely normal thing to witness. When I read the report I was stunned to learn that it is just not a problem in other cities, given that it is such an ingrained problem in our society.

The data from this report support our call for the remunicipalisation of waste collection. We are an outlier in Europe with our fully privatised waste collection. The report goes through a couple of different scenarios for how we might collect waste in Dublin and how the system might operate. My colleague, Senator Sherlock, has outlined some of those. We would like to see DCC and other local authorities recommencing domestic waste collection.

Other options are also outlined in the report, such as tendering for waste collection, but I do not think we can continue with the status quo. That is not happening in the four Dublin local authority areas, although perhaps it happens in other areas. It does not seem to be working in Kildare either. I have a few other colleagues around the country who, since we put this motion together, have said that it is not working for them.

Another issue regarding waste collection services was raised with me by Councillor Darragh Moriarty. He outlined that in some parts of Dublin where there are terraced houses, especially in the inner city area, they have difficulties with waste collection. It is difficult for them to have wheelie bins as they do not have front gardens or rear access. Therefore, in most cases, they have general heavy duty waste bags, which means they are not separating their general waste and their food waste. We have all heard of the incidents with seagulls. The new national legislation means that these households will now need to separate their waste but most bin providers are not going to let them do this without a wheelie bin, as brown bags could be turned over by seagulls and foxes. However, they cannot have wheelie bins, so they are stuck. The system is not working for them. The roads are literally too narrow.

Dublin City Council has only three bring centres that accept food waste, so it is not a realistic option for these households to do that. As we have sought, perhaps there needs to be a big increase in the number of civic centres that we have, especially ones that also accept food waste. I have been in Europe and I have seen what look like giant waste bins that are shared among the houses on each road. I was very struck by that, as it seems like a much more efficient way of doing things.

We have great civic centres. One was recently opened in Ballymun. I was there the other day and I thought it was brilliant. There is also the civic centre in Drogheda, which became like a monthly tradition in my family. We loaded up the car and off we all went.

Another marvellous Labour Party colleague of mine, James Joy, who is running for Cork City Council in the Cork City north west ward, outlined his priority to argue for waste collection and disposal services to be brought back under the control of Cork City Council.In James's view, the current system is contributing to the city's litter problem. He has been out every week cleaning up his area in north-west Cork city and reporting illegal dumping, including piles of discarded rubbish, to the council on a daily basis. I can only assume at this point that he has a direct line to the council as he is so often out cleaning up and reporting rubbish.

The current system is just not compatible with our environmental and aesthetic responsibilities. It is not compatible with being fair to the people who need to use waste management services. That is why we put forward this motion. It is balanced and reasonable. I hope the Minister of State will take it into consideration.