I thank Senators for bringing forward this interesting motion. I will start by talking about the different options here, three of which have been discussed. The first is the situation we have at the moment, which is competition in the market. Anybody with a waste collection permit can go out and collect waste door-to-door if they wish, wherever they wish. Second, it is competition for the market that people seek to obtain an exclusive tender to collect waste in a particular area, which would presumably be organised by the local authority. Finally, there is remunicipalisation, which is effectively nationalisation of a service that was previously privatised, although Senator McDowell made the case that the mention of waivers suggests that charges would still be there, so we are not talking about an unlimited free service paid out of general taxation.
Senator Sherlock referred to a number of legal problems and challenges that are here but also provided a number of suggestions for solutions. I thank her very much. I will look at those and consider them. I am not going to try to refute everybody's points or give glib answers because a lot of them are actually worth thinking about.
Deputy Alan Kelly was Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government between 2014 and 2016 and I believe he really wanted to make progress on this. Although he was an effective Minister who achieved many things in office, this was not one of them. It was not for the want of trying or from a lack of ability.
Senator Wall referred to the difficulty in getting the CCTV for dumping working in practice. I will refer to this a bit later, but the Local Government Management Agency, LGMA, has devised a scheme with the data protection people and there are a number of steps to jump through. I am doing a survey at the moment with local authorities to see how they are getting on with their CCTV. They have to strike a balance. There is a balance of rights between the right to live in a society where people are not under constant surveillance and the right to live in a free environment. Those things have to be balanced and there is a legal requirement to balance them.
Senator Kyne asked about the brown bins and when they will come in. They came in on 1 January. Every waste collector is meant to offer a brown bin service to everybody in the country since 1 January. If that is not happening in practice, people might let me know. Senator Kyne also referred to the problem of multiple trucks driving up the same street, which Senator McDowell considered might not be such a problem. A number of Senators raised this, however. From my point of view, it does seem like a waste of energy and a waste of resources to have multiple trucks driving up a street, which would then at least point towards competition for the market being a better solution.
Senator Boyhan made a case for competition, as did Senator McDowell. He also made the case for incineration and asked why we need to bother to segregate our waste at all if we have this fine incinerator that can burn it all and turn it into electricity and hot water to heat homes in the area. At the moment, we have approximately 41% of our municipal waste being incinerated, approximately 16% being landfilled, approximately 26% being recycled and 15% being composted or anaerobically digested There is a mix of things there. Generally, there are EU targets on recycling. It is considered to be a better thing to do than incineration, which is not the worst because we get something back from it. However, we do have to meet EU targets on recycling. In other words, our EU policy has been set that it is higher up the waste hierarchy to recycle things and we are meeting those targets.
Senator Hoey pointed out the particular problems in Dublin's inner city, particularly to do with food waste collection. She mentioned that many people do not have driveways and areas out the back in which to store things. In many cases, they have to bring wheelie bins through their homes. There can be problems with bags being on the ground and so on. I am working with Dublin City Council on such issues in the north-east inner city, where there are particular problems of extremely bad litter blight on the streets. We have a number of pilot projects that have been running for a while. We are hoping to collect some data to show that some of the worst streets in the city have improved recently.
Senator Maria Byrne expressed her support for people on low incomes who are unable to afford the cost of having waste collected and so on, which I will refer to later. She pointed out that litter on farms can be eaten by animals and that we need incentives to recycle.
We have many incentives to recycle. We have a complex scheme to encourage people to recycle. The deposit-return scheme would be one element of that, as is the whole Repak system and system of paying people. There are subsidies to people who collect waste and there are taxes on people who produce packaging and so on, which are all balanced to try to encourage recycling. A waste collection permit holder is legally required to charge more for the black bin waste than for the recycling waste, but that can be adjusted.
Senator Warfield made a case for re-municipalisation. I do not think it is a silver bullet. I am old enough to remember what the bin collection system was like when it was run by local authorities. It was more expensive and they did not handle recycling waste at the time. People moved by choice to private collectors because they were cheaper. Local authorities had difficulty and were delighted to exit the market for collecting waste at the time. Anybody who works in a local authority will say they would hate to go back there. That said, I would not rule it out.
Senator McDowell asked about the collection of heavy items, for example, broken lawnmowers and bicycles. Many local authorities provide exceptional collection schemes. The State subsidises them through the anti-dumping initiatives. It provides for things like mattress amnesties and other types of waste collection. It is a good point that not everybody has a car in which they can load a broken item to bring to a centre. This is particularly true in Dublin city centre where there is a very low rate of car ownership.
I am happy to update the House in respect of the significant progress made in recent years in how waste is managed while also highlighting the supports, in terms of both resources and legislative powers, given to local authorities to deal with littering and illegal dumping.
Under Part II of the Waste Management Act 1996, local authorities are statutorily responsible for waste management planning, including infrastructure provision. The Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications is precluded under section 60(3) of the Act, from the exercise of any power or control, in specific circumstances over the statutory functions of a local authority. As such, decisions on the provision of additional public infrastructure such as civic amenity sites and public bins are decisions for each local authority within its functional area.
The obligations on local authorities in respect of collecting household waste are set out in section 33 of the Waste Management Act 1996, as amended. In summary, it provides that each local authority shall collect, or arrange for the collection of, household waste within its functional area. The obligation to collect or arrange for the collection of household waste does not apply if: an adequate waste collection service is available in the local authority's functional area; the estimated costs of the collection of the waste would, in the opinion of the local authority, be unreasonably high; or the local authority is satisfied that adequate arrangements for the disposal of the waste concerned can reasonably be made by the holder of the waste.
It is open to any local authority to re-enter the waste collection market as a direct service provider if it so chooses, either alongside existing permitted service providers or subject to making arrangements to replace those providers. Altering the structure of the household waste collection market was the subject of a public consultation exercise in 2011. A comprehensive regulatory impact analysis from 2012 also considered options regarding the organisation of the household waste collection market. The RIA recognised that there were some advantages to the franchise-bidding approach, also known as competition for the market, which scored marginally higher than strengthening the regulatory regime and keeping the existing side-by-side competitive market structure - the competition in the market.
However, given the critical nature of the waste collection service, the risks associated with moving to franchise bidding were judged to deem this option ultimately less desirable. Noting that there was a possibility that a switch from side-by-side competition to franchise bidding could incur costs that made household waste collection less efficient, the RIA ultimately made the recommendation to strengthen the regulation of the market, especially in light of the risks associated with competition for the market. My view is that this is doable. Moving to competition for the market is something I can execute if I am convinced it is the right thing to do.
The continuing focus for my Department for the waste sector is to encourage greater waste minimisation, improve waste segregation and increase our recycling rates. A number of measures are already in place and the Circular Economy and Miscellaneous Provisions Act provides for a number of further measures from the waste action plan for a circular economy. Incentivised waste-collection charging in the commercial sector was introduced on 1 July 2023. A recovery levy has been applied on municipal waste recovery operations at municipal landfills, waste to energy plants, co-incineration plants and on the export of waste since 1 September 2023. This is the first time we have had a tax on incineration. There has been an expansion of household biowaste collection services since the first day of this year. I introduced the deposit-return scheme for plastic bottles and aluminium and steel cans on 1 February 2024. These measures will assist in encouraging greater waste minimisation and improved source segregation of waste by households and commercial premises across the State, and will contribute to achieving our challenging EU targets for municipal waste.
It is also worth highlighting the significant progress made over the last 20 years. In the early 2000s about 90% of our waste was going to landfills, of which there were 76 operating legally but several hundred were operating illegally. At that time, we had a recycling rate below 5%. Only 70,000 households had access to a kerbside collection service.
The current structure of the waste-collection market in Ireland, where private industry collects and manages the treatment of virtually all waste in Ireland under the regulatory supervision of the local authority sector and the EPA, has led us to a very different position. Now we have just three active municipal waste landfills accounting for about 10% of our waste going for disposal. Some 1.3 million households now have access to kerbside collection with recently introduced legislation requiring that all of these households are provided with a three-bin collection service. Our recovery rate is almost 80% and our recycling rate was 41% in 2021, the most recent year for which information is currently available. We are talking much less about what to do with what ends up in our bins and more about how we retain the inherent resource value of materials, which is the circular economy.
While the majority of waste collection and waste treatment in Ireland is conducted by private industry, both the local authority sector and the EPA continue to play an important role in overseeing the market to ensure it continues to operate in accordance with the various regulatory and licensing requirements. The recently published national waste management plan for a circular economy, which replaced the previous regional nature of such plans, is significant in this regard as it highlights the continued collaborative efforts required from all regulatory stakeholders to ensure the market continues to deliver the ambitions set out in both the waste action plan for a circular economy and the national waste management plan for a circular economy. These stakeholders include my Department, the EPA, the National Waste Collection Permit Office, the three regional waste management planning offices, the three waste enforcement regional authorities, WERLAs, and the National Transfrontier Shipment Office.
I will now move on to the call for the Government to stop Bord na Móna from selling its waste management business. I can confirm that the Government has received no formal notification from Bord na Móna on its intentions regarding its waste management business. Bord na Mona, is a commercial State body under the aegis of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. All State bodies are required to comply with the code of practice for the governance of State bodies of 2016, which aims to ensure commercial and non-commercial State bodies meet the highest standards of corporate governance. With regard to the disposal of assets, section 8.22 of the code states “The Chairperson of the Board should seek the approval of the relevant Minister and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in advance of any material acquisition or disposal of land, buildings or other material assets proposed by a State body.”
As previously noted, under section 60(3) of the Waste Management Act 1996, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications is precluded from exercising any power or control in the performance by a local authority, in particular circumstances, of a statutory function vested in it. Under the legislation, individual local authorities are responsible for dealing with cases involving the illegal disposal of waste in their functional areas. It is matter for them to take the appropriate enforcement and clean-up actions. However, while the primary responsibility for management and enforcement responses to illegal waste activity lies with local authorities, my Department continues to provide extensive policy, financial and legislative support. For example, my Department provided €750,000 under the anti-litter and anti-graffiti awareness grant scheme for 2023. Under this scheme, local authorities are responsible for selecting suitable projects and locations for funding and grant allocations.
Funding is also provided annually in support of a number of important anti-litter initiatives such as the national spring clean, the PURE project and Irish business against litter. In addition, my Department provides significant support to local authorities in their efforts to tackle illegal dumping. Almost €18 million, including €2.8 million in 2023, has been provided to the sector under the anti-dumping initiative since it was first introduced in 2017 to encourage a collaborative approach between local authorities, community groups and other State agencies to tackling the problem. A further €3 million has been made available under the scheme for 2024.
My Department also continues to invest heavily in the local authority waste enforcement network through the local authority waste enforcement measures grant scheme, with the intention of maintaining a visible presence of waste enforcement personnel on the ground across the State. From 2003 to the end of 2023, some €145 million has been provided to local authorities by my Department under this scheme and this funding has supported the ongoing recruitment and retention of a network of waste enforcement staff across the country.
Effective enforcement of waste legislation is a crucial component of our efforts to ensure our streets are clean and that all households and commercial premises take responsibility for ensuring their waste is managed in an appropriate manner. In this regard, my Department continues to work towards ensuring that the regulatory system in place is fit for purpose and that the enforcement structures underpinning the system are coherent, capable and credible. This system must ensure that all breaches of waste legislation can be identified, rigorously investigated and successfully prosecuted.
In recent years, we have seen huge policy shifts and legislative changes at both national and European levels. At European Union level, we have seen the ongoing development of the waste framework directive and the adoption of the single-use plastics directive. We have also seen the increasing importance of extended producer responsibility initiatives in dealing with challenging waste streams. At a national level, we have the waste action plan for a circular economy, which sets out a challenging and ambitious programme of works for the local authority sector over the next seven years. Work is continuing on developing the next whole-of-government circular economy strategy, which is due to be published later this year.
In the past year alone, we have seen the introduction of incentivised waste collection in the commercial sector, the nationwide roll-out of brown bins, the introduction of the deposit return scheme and the introduction of a new waste recovery levy. All of these measures require significant local authority enforcement activity to ensure their success.
