Private Company Only Winners – Crowe

Dublin South West TD Seán Crowe has called on Minister Simon Coveney to scrap the new regulations on which these outrageous charges are based and said the legislation that it is based on gives Recycling Companies a ‘free hand’ allowing them to charge what they like for waste collection.

Deputy Seán Crowe said:

“Irish people come out positively when it comes recycling so it is absolute madness to stunt that progress by introducing financial measures that penalise rather than rewarding those who go out of their way to recycle.

“These new waste charges are a direct fall-out from the ‘go to hell’ arrogant behaviour of the last Labour/Fine Gael administration..

“They passed this recycling  legislation in the dying days of their administration by using their huge majority, promised reductions, but as we can see is delivering huge increases for households across the country.

“Not satisfied with lumbering people with the hated water charges and regressive taxes like the property charge, in the dying days of their administration, they fast tracked another financial burden on to hard pressed families.

“Clearly Statutory Instrument 24 was skewed towards the private waste companies and should never have been signed into law.

“Many of us at Council level and in Leinster House argued that the privatisation of waste collection would lead to a loss of jobs and a poorer service and this has now happened.

“The financial disincentive will also lead to an increase in illegal dumping and its negative impact on the physical and visual environment.

“The Minister could have targeted those producers and companies who favour package materials that currently cannot be recycled but opted once again to hit the vulnerable householder.

“Instead of supposedly encouraging and promoting, this legislation will discourage more and more people away from recycling.

“Minister Coveney should scrap the existing regulation. He can do this at the stroke of a pen by introducing a new Statutory Instrument.

“He should reject the temporary freeze on bin charges proposed by the waste collection industry last Friday and go back to the drawing board to rethink his Government’s approach to this issue.

“In doing so he must ensure that any new regulations do not allow hard pressed families to be targeted by unscrupulous waste companies.”