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WELCOME TO POLICY Matters, a series from The Journal that takes a deep dive into the ideas and solutions proposed by Ireland’s politicians on some of the biggest issues of the day.
As part of the series, The Journal sits down with different spokespeople from across Ireland’s political parties to take a deeper look at what they believe needs to be done across areas like housing, health, the environment and childcare.
Last time, we spoke to Green Party councillor Michael Pidgeon about how to improve public transport in Dubin City.
This week, we sat down with Labour Party Senator and spokesperson on employment affairs, Marie Sherlock to talk about the argument for bringing waste collection back under public control.
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IN RECENT MONTHS, the Labour Party, Sinn Féin and others have been mounting a campaign to bring domestic waste collection back under public control.
The remunicipalisation of domestic waste, if you will.
They argue that doing so would help reduce costs for households and help clean up the streets.
Back in November of last year, a cross-party Oireachtas working group was set up to explore the matter and guide legislation through the Oireachtas.
Since then, the Labour Party has introduced a motion in the Seanad calling for bin collection to be removed from private providers.
Sitting down with The Journal, Senator Marie Sherlock took us through what needs to happen to make this a reality.
Sherlock argued that as it stands, private operations are making huge profits while local Councils are “left to clean up the mess”.
Household waste collection companies take in around €350m in revenue each year.
Conversely, local authorities spend approximately €100m every year cleaning up illegal dumping.
“So there’s a market failure there, right? Because you are not subsidizing one against the other,” Sherlock said.
She argued that this is an issue because it then leads to underinvestment in waste management.
Sherlock made the point that there is “no imagination” when it comes to waste management in Ireland and argued that things like underground waste chutes and shared collection points should at least be explored by Dublin City Council.
Underground waste chutes are used successfully in other European cities like Rotterdam and the Hague.
While in Barcelona and Copenhagen, public bins are piped underground, leading to less overflow onto streets.
“So rather than everyone putting out their individual bags, we create facilities, like the bike bunkers, where waste can be collected in a central area – it’s protected, it’s not bags going out the night before or two days before or any of that kind of nonsense and madness,” Sherlock said.
She added that another issue in some areas, like Dublin’s inner city, are wheelie bins being left out to clutter footpaths the whole time because households don’t have space to store them.
Over 900 streets in Dublin have exemptions where households use bags instead of wheelie bins because of this problem, but as a result, streets can be littered with rubbish from burst and ripped bags, attracting rodents.
Separately, Sherlock made the point that although private bin collectors are supposed to provide brown bins (composting) to households, this simply isn’t possible in all areas.
In some areas there is also a total lack of competition, with certain bin providers having an effective monopoly, meaning they can basically charge whatever they like, Sherlock argued.
“Over the last few years, we’ve been doing a piece of work and looking at how we could move away from competition in the market to competition for the market.
“Ultimately, I would like to get to a place where we’re talking about remunicipalisation. But I think anybody who’s seriously looking at these issues, recognises that there’s a whole host of challenges that we need to overcome – legal obstacles, to get to that space,” Sherlock said.
Sherlock takes the view that the first step, for Dublin, is to have the four local authorities tendering for a single provider and effectively exerting much more control over how waste is collected.
This would see one provider gain a contract to collect all bins in the local authority area, effectively removing the choice from the consumer and Sherlock argues, provides far greater oversight of the service plus greater certainty in relation to pricing.
“Some people would say we want the choice, but when you ask people if they are happy with the current system, they might say well I’m happy with my current collection system but I’m annoyed about illegal dumping. So we need to be able to join those dots.
“That’s the critical thing, we want investment in the system overall,” Sherlock said.
“This is the problem and I’ve said this before, what we’re talking about here isn’t just bins and to reduce it to that is a mistake in some ways, because it’s about the whole system of waste management.”
Does this then mean higher prices for households, if the vision is to fund the whole system of waste management in a more holistic way?
“I don’t envision that prices would go up,” Sherlock said.
“At the moment, every company, unless they’ve got a loss leader strategy, every company has to build on a profit margin to what they’re charging you and I. So I don’t see the prices would go up at all.”
Look at the profits made by some of the waste companies and bear in mind, many of these are unlimited companies as well, so there is little or no transparency as to what they actually earn.
“I’m not sure the competition has worked,” Sherlock added.
“There’s very little control overall being exerted by any one local authority because of the way the system is set up,” she said.
Sherlock made the point that Government parties signalled support for the Labour motion in May, but that there is a big difference between that and actually doing something about it.
There’s a degree of fatalism there, that it is always going to be like this.
“But actually it can be different and if you go to different European cities there is a different landscape there,” Sherlock said.
Even in Dublin, we don’t have 100% coverage – not all houses in Dublin have a waste collecting service.
“Which is shocking,” Sherlock added.
“How in this day and age have we allowed this system to develop? It is because it is a profit-driven system.”
One significant stumbling block for those who want to see waste collection brought under public control is the potential for legal challenges by existing private providers.
The Institute of Public Administration has warned that there could be major legal challenges from existing private refuse collection companies without laws being put in place to allow for the change.
When asked about this, Sherlock prefixed her response with a big qualifer to say she is not a lawyer or barriser but said:
“If Dublin City Council was to wake up tomorrow morning, and say we’re bringing it all in house, you would have massive legal difficulty on competition grounds. And there’s a whole raft of EU law.”
Sherlock added that this was previously tested in 2009, when the High Court ruled Dublin’s four local authorities had breached competition law in their bid to try and tender for bin collection. The case was taken by the parent company of Panda Waste Services.
Since then, the EU has introduced the Concessions Directive, which deals with services of public necessity, and there is now a view that competition for the market would be allowable.
“Ultimately, to those who say, we just want to bring it in-house immediately. I think what you need to do is see the four Dublin local authorities setting up their own waste management company, going toe-to-toe with the private operations. And over time, winning their own bid.
“And that would be brilliant. It would be fantastic. But I suppose I’m just dealing with the here and now and at least if we have one company bidding you can exert much greater control over that service then,” Sherlock said.
Would there be any legal constraints on the Dublin local authorities doing this?
Sherlock doesn’t believe so, instead she puts the inertia down to a lack of political and financial will.
Sherlock argued that there is a “conservative mindset” within local authories with regard to what they can and cannot do and that this has stalled progress.
“That culture has developed and evolved over many years, because of the erosion of local authority powers.
“The result now is that local authorities are quite risk averse.”
She added: “To be fair, Richard Shakespeare [the chief executive of Dublin City Council] has talked about the issues that are there.
“Now, they’re trialling a collapsable bin, which is great and look, we welcome all sorts of innovation. Richard would also make the point that the underground waste collection system, probably would run into a lot of difficulties in Dublin because of all the services underneath but again, let’s look at the feasibility.”
All of this leads Sherlock to believe we are “awhile away” from seeing Dublin’s local authorities tendering for waste collection services.
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If my girlfriend, my sister, or any of the other females in my life ever had the misfortune of rape-GOD FORBID. I would want them to have the access to terminate the pregnancy. It would be monstrous to expect them to carry the pregnancy to term. It’s their human right to choose.
Based on fact, it’s actually not their right. Under our constitution abortion in Ireland is illegal.
Morally, under certain circumstances, I believe it is their right.
on a connected point, despite the fact that the unborn child is considered under the irish constitution to be a person, with the same legal rights as every other person, they are not accorded the same rights under our tax and welfare systems
There is not one politician in this country that the balls to fight for this cause. They’re too concerned with loosening votes than what’s good for the people of this country. A woman who gets pregnant from rape has been handed down a life sentence, while the rapist gets a suspended sentence because he had ‘a drink problem or a bad childhood or he was abused himself’ or whatever other stupid excuse a slimeball solicitor comes up with. and this is after s/he’s destroyed the victim’s credibility while she was being cross examined. The woman’s body, her choice!
loosening=loosing!
If a woman is raped and becomes pregnant the government has a responsibility to punish the wrong-doer… who is not the child conceived as a result of that rape.
The report tells of 43 children born as a result of rape. Question: Could you look at any of these children in the eye and still believe that the circumstances of their conception would have justified their killing?
That slimeball solicitor provides the defendant a human right.(Right to legal aid) and is under an oath to represent the best interests of the client.
Trying to mitigate the plea of the defendant does not warrant the labeling of a ‘slimeball’.
Just doing his/her job to earn an income.
My aunt has 4 kids, 3 she adores her eldest son she did not bond with at all and they have no relationship at all, he was the result of being raped and it’s terrible I see both sides of the story and its unreal, her son is severally fooked up because of it h
@Soupy it takes a certain kind of person to decide that is the way they want to earn an income.
@ j. Brennan: would you ever be able to look your daughter in the eye – if you never fought for her rights to terminate a pregnancy if she was ever the victim of a brutal rape? Would you be able to stand seeing her prolonged suffering for a circumstance she never asked for? Could you still stand on your moral high ground knowing the psychological distress she bears over the rape compounded by the pregnancy?
“Three became pregnant, as a result of rape, more than once….”
That is frightening.
It won’t ever happen to me, so I’d never feel qualified to decide what I’d do, but it’s incredibly brave of those women who went ahead and raised the baby. I doubt I’d be able to bear it – My hats off to those women.
Unless they had access to 1,000 plus in funds, access to the Internet or a local IFPA and freedom to leave the country they didn’t have a choice but to have the baby. That’s why these figures are being highlighted.
Only 10% having an abortion is a welcome low figure although 75 is a statistically small sample size. Sadly many rape victims don’t report that they’ve been raped.
Low number? I was shocked at how many people this happens to. 75 pregnancies from rape in a single year is HUGE! I was under the impression it was around once a year.
I said statistically small sample size. Different to saying that this isn’t a big issue. IT IS!
How is it welcome that women who do not have the right to choice are forced in irish law to bring to term the product of rape? See how welcome you’d find it in similar circumstances to these women.
I wonder if women who became pregnant as a result of rape did have access to an abortion, without any shame or associated baggage but instead with society’s support, would the figures be different. If their options in this country were different, if instead of feeling outcast they were supported and if they said they wanted an abortion nobody tut tutted but said thats ok, thats their decision and their right. We’ll never know.
how can you any figure?? it is none of our business, the people involved will make a decision for themselves.
should read……how can you welcome any figure…….
Oisin – it’s disgusting to refer to a baby, a person, as a product of rape !
@Poppy If a woman has been raped and impregnated, a baby may be born. This baby is, by definition, a product of rape. Neither the mother or the child have done anything wrong, they should bear no stigma and society should never shun either. Many years ago my mother in law told me she believed many people were born of rape, rape in marraige. She could be right, I don’t know, but the point is the person beside you could be a product of rape. It doesn’t have to define who they are.
I’m disgusted that a baby has been labeled “the product of the rape” in a comment above. Disgusted.
Rape is defined as the unlawful compelling of a person through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse. It naturally follows that if a child is produced by this then this child is a product of rape, while you may be disgusted by the term, like many, I find rape itself distasteful. Each to their own.
I accept it’s a valid definition but it shows a complete lack of humanism towards unborn babies.
They are human life just like the rest of us.
Yes they are, but its not up to us to decide what is and isn’t right in this situation but rather show compassion for the decision the women in this position have to make. What I find worse here is that women in this country who are raped and would want to have an abortion, even all these years after the X case, can’t have one. Surely a woman who has been raped and decides she wants an abortion should be able to have one, surely its not too much to ask that they not be judged but treated with compassion and their decision respected. I’m placing emphasis on the word compassion, and if a woman says under these circumstances that she’d like an abortion then nobody question her but rather support her. The figures show ten women had to travel abroad for abortions under what must have been difficult circumstances, these should have been available here, given with compassion. This seems to be something very lacking in Ireland today.
I’m disgusted by the fact over 1,500 women attended rape crisis centres last year which is only a fraction of the true number of victims. Maybe the rent an outrage brigade could exercise themselves over that, you know, actual living breathing women rather than hypothetical foetuses.
What’s a hypothetical foetus?
Many of these could be within a marriage.
Obviously I’m not a woman and obviously it’s not the child’s fault, but I could never love something that was the product of a rape. Maybe I’d have the baby, I really don’t know, but I certainly wouldn’t keep it. I’d give it up for adoption. But I am adamant that women should be allowed have the choice whether to have an abortion or not.
my son is the image of his dad, my husband. I could not give birth to a product of rape and have to look at the childs face for the rest of my life. On the other hand introducing abortion for rape victims could be damaging to genuine rape victims as I believe some women would “cry rape” just for abortion, making it even harder than it already is for rape victims
Don’t think women who are raped should have to go through with having the baby. For balance though: Albert Einsteins was conceived due to rape… Food for thought
Really? Not mentioned in his biography.
he probly didnt remember the incident peter
That’s neither true, nor food for thought.
Its a well known urban legend, in fact in its more common form its usually Mozart, not Einstien.
Its also a non-starter as an argument, as I could just as easily argue the likelihood that the child could go on to become the next Hitler…
No woman should be forced to carry a child in these circumstances if she doesn’t want to, its barbaric.
Yeah If you look at my first sentence I say no woman should have to go through with birth after rape. I was merely giving balance to the debate.
Revolting, you do know the difference between a biography and an autobiography don’t you?
A woman who is raped and chooses to have an abortion should not have to travel to avail of this service, she should be cared for medically and psychologically in Ireland. The woman’s ability to make the right decision about what is best for her should be respected in Ireland and all infrastructure needed should be in place. Sadly its not.
while your comment has slight element of truths it is unfair to suggest that figures are bloated. The reason that so many rapes are not called rapes is because the difficulty in prosecution. Horrific as it is for a woman to be raped it is worse that she then has to be violated just to collect evidence from her body in the hopes of collecting evidence and only then, if it see’s the inside of a court its a case of he said, she said. The rape crisis centre is one of the most valuable organizations to irish citizens (dont forget men are raped too) to suggest that they exxagerate figures is deplorable. I would say there figures are not accurate enough due to women who are raped on a daily basis by their partners and do not report it, women who fall victim to date rape by spiked drinks (maybe they cannot remember??) Teenage girls who are raped and then threatened to within an inch of their lives should they report it and finally young kids who just dont know how to ask for help. My advice to you is to think before you make such a definate statement
Now my comments look stupid as his have been removed, just as well though!!
Those poor women. What an awful decision to ever be confronted with.
well if doing your masters has thought you nothing more than to make such broad ridiculous statements I dont know!! Why not go to shelters for statistics? Is that not where victims can be found with vital information for research if they are willing? Throwing in the academic card does not make your point more valid than mine, whilst I am also an academic I did not feel the need to mention it to strenghten my point
Interesting that the pregnant lady in the photo is wearing a wedding-ring. Is that pure chance or is it part of the message?
I have just read the 2011 Annul Report of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre and there is an incredible amount of data there for researchers to mine in an attempt to frame policies for dealing with this appalling tragedy in modern society.
Of 25 pregnancies in that year ten were described as being terminated while six were miscarried and one lost to follow up.
Does use of the so called morning after pill constitute either termination or miscarriage as there is no mention of it and that could only be explained by late presentation. It would be useful to understand what number or proportion of these women presented to sexual assault clinics before being counselled by the Crisis Centre.
There’s no so-called, it’s just the morning after, nor does it qualify as miscarriage or termination as it prevents implantation in the first place. Plenty of rape victims could obtain the morning after without reporting the rape or attending Rape Crisis so these figures are by no means the full story.
‘so-called’ morning after? It’s just the morning after! It’s not an urban legend. The chances are your missus, (if you have one) your mother & your sister (again, if you have one) have all taken it at some stage!!! And I believe the most common practice is to give it to rape victims if the rape is reported on time.
Guess its “so-called” because it can be taken up to 72 hours later… more effective the sooner its taken
1545 survivors of sexual violence reported ….
That is nearly 30 people a week here .I am
absolutely shocked by these figures alone.
Why do we not hear more about these figures ?
This is amazing that 29+ women (Or do these figures
include men too) are attacked in this way per week in
Ireland in 2010
have your say