Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 16 Oct 2003

Vol. 572 No. 5

Adjournment Debate. - Waste Disposal.

Mr. Gregory:

It makes a joke of this House that the Minister was on radio and television every day this week vilifying those involved in the bin tax campaign but will not respond to the issue in the House when it is raised. No wonder we have no credibility or respect. I note that the members of the media have left and are probably gone home.

I welcome the opportunity to respond to what I consider to be misinformation and propaganda by the Minister regarding the campaign against bin taxes. I want to respond to his vilification of those opposed to this tax. He claims that the bin tax was the result of a democratic decision by Dublin City Council. This is a complete distortion and he knows it. The city council was blackmailed and threatened with abolition if it did not pass the Estimates that included the bin tax. A clear majority of councillors opposed its introduction but they were bullied, threatened and blackmailed by the Government into capitulation. Is this the Minister's version of local democracy? The Government will not even pay rates to the city council on Government-owned buildings in Dublin city, yet it threatens the council. This brought about the crisis in the city's finances in the first place.

The Minister's second deliberate distortion is his claim that 80% of householders in Dublin are "happy to pay this tax." Many of those in Dublin who paid the bin tax only did so after repeated intimidation, harassment and bully boy threats of legal action by the law agent acting for the city manager. Threatening letters were sent to thousands of householders, which read:

I wish to inform you that under legislation recently passed by the Oireachtas, Dublin City Council will no longer be obliged to collect household waste where the householder has failed to pay all relevant waste charges and arrangements are being made to discontinue collection in your case.

If . . . not paid within 14 days, we will be engaging the services of a Debt Collection Agency for appropriate action.

The City Council also has the option to seek a decree against you which we can . . . refer to the Sheriff for execution or . . . register the Decree as a Judgement Mortgage in . . . the Registry of Deeds . . . .

We will . . . seek full legal costs in relation to any Court proceedings and for the payment of interest . . . on all amounts due.

I have had many calls from decent, law-abiding people who strongly oppose the tax but who are fearful of court cases and debt collection agencies harassing them. Many paid up as a result. Is this the Minister's idea of "happy to pay the tax"?

The Minister's next distortion is his claim that a handful of individuals are orchestrating the campaign. I attended the march to Mountjoy Pri son on the jailing of Deputy Joe Higgins. A conservative estimate of the number in attendance is 4,000. Last Saturday, I marched with 2,000 trade unionists under the banner of the Dublin Council of Trade Unions and SIPTU. SIPTU, our largest union, advertised in the national papers against the unfair taxation and against the imprisonment of peaceful protesters. To mention just one of many local meetings, 400 to 500 decent Cabra householders met in a Cabra sports centre to oppose the bin tax.

The Minister has some neck to misrepresent the outrage of PAYE workers in low income communities in Dublin. The Government is out of touch with working class people who have borne the burden of taxation for decades while rich tax dodgers were well represented in the Minister's party. There is now even greater outrage because decent people and mothers of babies are being jailed in Mountjoy Prison for peaceful protest while millionaire tax cheats lie at tribunals and so-called tax exiles pocket millions and evade justice.

This outrage and the Minister's policy of non-collection of household waste has led directly to the escalation of the crisis. In Dublin, the bin tax is on a flat rate and is clearly inequitable. It is not based on ability to pay and is not an incentive to recycle. One pays the same amount whether one leaves out two tea bags, two black bags or two full bins. It has nothing to do with the environment, but is a mere money-making exercise to pay for the shortfall of funding from central Government, which will not pay its own rates. I call on the Minister who did not bother coming to the House to listen to the debate to send out the message to his managerial lackeys that they should stop the non-collection policy and return to the courts to free the peaceful protesters.

A feature of the bin tax propaganda is the repeated attempt by the Minister and others to make householders feel responsible for the bulk of waste production. Householders account for a small proportion of all waste produced and 15% of waste going to landfill sites. A favourite slogan of the Minister and the pro-bin tax lobby is that the polluter pays principle should be applied to householders. All the evidence is that householders are waste receivers, rather than polluters, and would have much less material of which to dispose if commercial and retail outlets cut down on packaging and the proper recycling infrastructure was in place, which it is not.

Mr. F. McGrath:

Hear, hear.

Mr. Gallagher:

I thank Deputy Gregory for raising this important issue. Deputies will agree that the Minister does not fear debating any issue in the House or any other forum.

Mr. Gregory:

He should be here. He never misses an opportunity to appear on "News at One".

Acting Chairman:

The Minister of State to continue without interruption.

Mr. Gallagher:

He never shrinks from his responsibility and must preside over the implementation of legislation agreed democratically in the Houses.

At a time when we are faced with ever increasing amounts of waste, it is right to place the issue of waste charges in context. Direct user charges for household waste collection services are widely applied throughout Europe, particularly in the context of increasing awareness of the financial and environmental cost of waste generation and encouraging waste reduction and recycling. It is logical that such principled support for waste charges should be built into EU policy and legislation. The polluter pays principle, one of the cornerstones of EU environmental policy, is, therefore, reflected in waste legislation at European level and domestically. The bottom line is that charges serve an important environmental purpose. They have been in place in many areas for some time and their introduction in Dublin in recent years brings domestic waste management practice into line with EU norms.

Leaving aside these environmental imperatives, it is noteworthy that at no stage during the current debate have those opposed to waste charges offered any credible alternative solution as to how we can tackle our waste management problems. The fundamentalists of the anti-bin charge lobby have a comfortably simplistic view of how to deal with domestic waste. They believe waste management should be undertaken by local authorities with no involvement from the wider community and society, and that local authorities can remove householders' waste at no cost to anyone and without having to dispose of it. Waste does not evaporate. This escapist view may fit in with the ideologies of the Socialist Workers Party and its friends but would fail disastrously to meet the needs of householders and society in general—

Mr. Gregory:

The party will thank the Minister of State for the publicity.

Mr. Gallagher:

Householders want an efficient and sustainable waste management service which will improve the environment.

I wish to put in context the issue of collection of waste and non-payment of charges. A judgment of the Supreme Court in 2001 found that local authorities did not have the power to refuse to collect waste from households who had failed to pay their waste charges. Instead, the court held that local authorities were obliged to continue to collect the waste from such households and pursue the outstanding charges through the normal debt recovery mechanisms. The implications of this judgment were stark as it meant the law, as it stood in relation to waste charges, was only enforceable by pursuing every single defaulter through the legal process. With local authorities facing growing challenges in terms of modernising waste infrastructure and practices, meeting social housing needs and delivering roads, water, sewerage and other infrastructure, it would be grossly wasteful to have the resources of local authorities and the courts tied up in this way. It would also have been entirely inequitable for the vast bulk of the people who paid their waste charges to have to continue to subsidise the minority who did not, while the matters involved became tied up in the courts. Local authorities should not be forced to provide a service for those who refuse to pay. That is not just my view but the democratically expressed view of the majority of the Members of both this House and the Seanad in passing the relevant legislation introduced earlier this year.

Let us be clear about that for which the legislation provides. It does not impose an obligation on local authorities to refuse to collect waste from defaulting householders but provides them with the power to do so where necessary. It is a matter for each local authority to decide when and how to use that power. We should also be clear that the utilisation of this power did not result in the events we have seen in Dublin in recent weeks, as the Deputy's motion suggests. They were the result of the actions of a small group of people who not only refuse to obey the law by paying their waste charges but also refuse to accept the consequences of their action, as provided for in law passed through the democratic process, or abide by orders of the courts. To have the authority of the Executive, Legislature and courts challenged in this manner is unacceptable in any democratic society.

I am glad the protests at local authority depots in Dublin in recent days have been discontinued and the local authorities have been able to get on with providing the service for which between 75% and 90% of the citizens of the four Dublin local authorities have paid. I hope good sense in this matter will continue to prevail in the days ahead.