Wasted opportunities costing our fair and beautiful land so dearly

SIR,

Can we do anything right in our great little country? We waste taxpayers’ money regularly, whether it’s over budget motorways or general infrastructure. Could we be weak at mathematics, unable to calculate large amounts?

Oversight of projects seems to be slipshod in the extreme. Somehow we totally miscalculated the cost of the new children’s hospital. Now we are going to build the dearest hospital in the world – Guinness Book of records stuff surely. We wasted money on junior bondholders from Anglo whom we were told would not be rewarded.

Now from financial waste to household waste the malaise continues. We are going to employ waste inspectors to check that citizens are disposing of their waste legally. More costly office staff will also be needed to back up this new system. Errors will be made. The elderly, who might not have a very well functioning home office, will need to be on their toes. A slip up could be costly. If you can’t produce receipts for every bag you choose to bring to the refuse centre you could be fined.

We have private refuse collection of our waste. Local authorities don’t use our property tax to do the job.

In most other countries property tax has a specific function, whether it’s to cover water, refuse or other utilities.

In lreland we pay property tax, in effect to allow other exchequer funds to pay the private bank debt and our actual national debt.

The trouble is the private sector doesn’t collect all the household waste. Our local authorities clean up the mess of illegal dumping. So, once again, the taxpayer is funding an extra cost.

Private operators can hike their prices and indirectly contribute to this dumping. This clean up should be part of their brief and it might encourage them to keep their charges low and we might have less illegal dumping.

The State could give ‘free’ refuse collection, even employing the private contractors. The extra charge could be incorporated into the property tax or into VAT.

It could eliminate the illegal dumping as householders would not employ shady operators to dispose of rubbish or dump rubbish themselves. The citizens of this fair and beautiful land would offset the new charge by saving on their current yearly refuse bill. We could have a clean countryside again. It would be more water (refuse) tight.

If Taoiseach Leo Varadkar could be transported to our local refuse collectors’ yards – especially on Saturday mornings – and witness the elderly, among others, hauling heavy bags out of their cars, then he might understand how the other half lives.

Every Euro is important to the middle class poor and savings have to be made even in the cost of waste disposal. A bit of humanity is one of the missing ingredients when the national cake is being divided. Think of those at the bottom of the ladder Leo. They are trying to exist in a most expensive country,

Sincerely,

Gerry Cournane,

Tralee