Sinn Féin TD Dessie Ellis has said that it is time for the Minister to act against errant practises in bin companies since the price freeze last month.

The Dublin North West TD said:

“The insistence by Greyhound waste collection company on customers having to front load their credit by the 1st of August is another way to force people into the pay-by-weight scheme. This goes against the spirt of the agreement with the Minister. It’s now time for a legislative response to bring errant companies into line or the majority of financially pressured people will be in a position that they are unable to afford a bin service.

“I said that the announcement last month from the Minister and the Irish Waste Management Association does not go far enough with a price freeze for a year and now we have some companies trying to introduce the previous price structure through the back door. By crediting customers again on August 1stGreyhound are not charging extra but the result of this is that customers will have to pay twice for yearly contract. If you paid in January under this situation you have to find another yearly fee seven months into the year. More importantly it places a burden on those who can’t afford to pay.

“With no option for instalments or no bin waiver, many people including pensioners who have budgeted and paid their waste charges for the year last January now have to find another sum of money to stay on their existing plan. The failure to do this will result in the customer being put on the pay-by-weight, which is considerably more expensive. As the Minister said in his answer to me, this approach is out of step with other collectors and therefore out of step with the spirt of the agreement entered into with the Minister himself.”

Sinn Fein’s Dessie Ellis spoke in the Dáil last night and addressed the launch of the government’s action plan which he said falls well short of addressing the needs of the families that are affected most by the housing crisis. The Dublin North West TD said, “There will be no solution to the housing crisis without a social aspect; there will be no solution without state intervention. The action plan for housing and homelessness launched yesterday is a case in point. There are some good points but the plan is very conservative in its outlook and where time is taken to expand on plans they do not add up or are vague or misleading. There are a number of great initiatives in the action plan for supports for families with children in emergency accommodation such as dedicated child support workers; home school community liaison; access to free public transport for school journeys and joined up supports between education, health and TULSA for homeless families among others. Important interventions to safeguard families in emergency accommodation but it is not clear how this will be funded, will the relevant departments and bodies be expected to source this funding from their own budgets or will it be provided from somewhere else. You know as well as I do that funding will be the difference here.”
Deputy Ellis continued “The plan also allows for streamlining planning processes for larger private housing developments. The proposal is for developments with over 100 houses are referred straight to an Bord Pleanála therefore bypassing the local council process which was valuable for community input. Given that big developments will have the biggest impact on a local community removing the local consultation part of the planning process would be a retrograde step. Part of the local accountability in planning comes after pre-planning consultations at local level and often will enhance or community proof big developments. Something has to be done as in the month of June once again our homeless families’ numbers have increased; at the end of the month we had 1078 families homeless that includes 2206 children. This problem is getting worse by the week and this government is not dealing with the issues and the plan launched yesterday is not going to solve this problem in the short, medium or long term.”