Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this Topical Issue. Much has been said on waste management services, bin collections and the services that are provided. There are very significant issues with them, including complications, contradictions, inefficiencies, and side-by-side collection. A huge number of people do not have a bin service. We have a significant challenge and problem with illegal dumping. It falls on councils to pick up the tab for that. In the meantime, prices are increasing for ordinary workers and families because bin collection services have been privatised, for a very long time in some areas and in the likes of Dublin for a little more than a decade. We have a situation where the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, made recommendations in 2018 for a regulator, which never happened. Subsequent reports by the Dublin City Council working group comparing Dublin with other cities state that Dublin is like the Wild West when it comes to waste collection services and bin services, with multiple competitors literally driving up and down the street beside each other, which is unique.

In addition to that, and the issue we will talk about, is the introduction of the deposit return scheme. We introduced that scheme because the current system is not working. It is failing. We are not meeting recycling targets. We want to increase recycling rates and not have contaminated product, such as what we have in the current system. We want clean product. The deposit return scheme has been introduced, which includes a levy on individual plastic bottles and aluminium cans. Those have now been taken out of the recycling bin system. We now know, thanks to the reporting of Caroline O'Doherty in the Irish Independent and others, that there is a likelihood or prospect that private profits or revenue will be lost by the waste and bin companies because of the introduction of the deposit return scheme. In other words, since the profitable element of collecting aluminium and plastic bottles put in the recycling bin has now been lost to the deposit return scheme, a claim is being made that those lost revenues should be subsidised by the taxpayer or the cost be passed on to customers.

I listened to Irish Waste Management Association representatives at the Oireachtas committee last Tuesday who said it is now inevitable that bin charges will increase to make up for the lost revenues that have gone to the deposit return scheme. That is an absolute insult to injury for people who are engaging in good faith, although there is frustration, with the deposit return scheme. There is a taxation element and a levy associated with that. The idea that they will be charged more for a bin that they are now using less to guarantee the profits of waste companies is insulting.

On behalf of the communities I represent, I want to know what the Government is doing to ensure that bin companies are not given a profit guarantee and that customers are not penalised for doing the right thing.

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