Waste Management (Single Household Waste Collection Service) Bill 2026: Second Stage [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-16
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Paul McAuliffe (FF), Dublin North-West

In case I forget to do so at the end, I take this opportunity to thank all of the people who work here. This is a workplace, and I often remark that when we leave here at 11 p.m. or midnight on a Wednesday, the people we pass on the way out are often the first people we pass on the way in at 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. the following day when the work of Dáil is starting again. It is not a normal workplace, but it is a great place for people to work in together. I acknowledge the huge work the staff do here in extraordinary circumstances.
I rise to speak in favour of the Bill. I would like to see it proceed to Committee Stage. That is not because, on the last day of term, I have caught some sort of rebellious fever. I made a commitment to Deputies Gannon and Sherlock in 2019 in an agreement we signed together to pursue the issue of remunicipalisation. It was the right thing to do then and it is the right thing to do now.
It is not an accident that there are many Dublin-based Deputies in the House for this debate. Even within Dublin, there is disagreement among different political parties as to whether remunicipalisation is necessarily the way forward. Some of our colleagues in Dublin's county councils are often quite happy with the service they have or may have different views from us in the city. Deputy Mark Ward referenced the independent research which Dublin City Council commissioned in regard to this matter and which shows that councillors are of the view that greater control by the local authority is the way to proceed.
To break that down a little, the issues Deputies Gannon and Sherlock are having in the city centre are vastly different from the ones that are relevant in my constituency. We do not have an issue with bags. Nor do we have the same street structures or networks. It is entirely appropriate that there are different ways of collecting waste in different areas. I often think that this House over-regulates what happens at local government level. When I see legislation relating to licences for tables and chairs on pavements, I am aghast at the fact that we are sometimes so involved in local authority affairs. We should be empowering local authorities to make more decisions, including on local taxation. In the area of waste, we should enable local councillors to make decisions-----

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:17+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-16