Sleepwalking into another levy fiasco

THIS newspaper hardly needs to remind anyone of the disastrous manner in which the planned introduction of various levies has been handled in recent years. And, of course, many of the people who were members of the Cabinet at the time remain in Leo Varadkar’s ministerial line-up.

Now there is the very real threat of yet another fiasco. After it was announced last week that flat-fee bin charges are being done away with, Fianna Fáil frontbencher Timmy Dooley rightly pointed out that a waste regulator is ‘desperately needed to ensure that there is no price gouging and fixing in the industry’.

Even though his comments struck a chord with anyone familiar with the ways of the world, Fine Gael’s response has been nothing short of lamentable.

The best that junior housing minister Damien English could come up with yesterday was to say that the Government would ‘step in’ if refuse collection firms were abusing their position. But he ruled out any proper system of regulation on the grounds that it would ‘cost money’.

This smacks of the same old song that we have heard down through the years. There was no attempt by Mr English to specify what plans are in place to tackle bin companies who try to take advantage of their customers. This isn’t good enough.

People living in Dublin, Cork and other major urban centres have a variety of options when it comes to deciding who they pay to collect their household waste. But the plain truth of the matter is that residents of smaller communities have no such choice. Vast numbers of people are at the mercy of whichever collection service happens to operate in their area.

It is inconceivable that none of these firms will try to exploit the situation for their own ends. And it is utterly outrageous that the Government clearly has nothing in place to prevent them from doing so.