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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-----to put in place waste solutions that suit their areas. If this means that there is a different solution in Dublin City Council's area than in the other local authority areas across the county, then that is how it should be. Unfortunately, that power rests with the chief executive. Despite councillors and the elected representatives of a city wanting something different, they are not empowered to do take action. I would like the Bill to proceed to Committee Stage, particularly as this debate is only half of the discussion. Deputy Gannon is right. The Government believes that if Dublin City Council wanted to establish its own waste collection service tomorrow, it could do so. Do not forget that Dublin City Council decided to close its waste collection service and to withdraw from the market. The council did not privatise its service, it withdrew its service. It was open to the council to do that. The reality is that in the absence of the local authority having the financial ability to remunicipalise the service, no chief executive is going to make the decision in that regard. As stated, the debate on the Bill is one half of the discussion. If we are saying that remunicipalisation is the solution, in some ways this Bill could send us in the wrong direction if it is not matched on the other side. For example, what is proposed in the Bill would provide competition. One downside - this is something I would be cautious about - is that if competition for the market were introduced, it would be private operators that would tender in the first round. This would mean that we could see a scenario where one private company would win the tender in all four Dublin local authority areas. As a result, we would essentially have one waste company. We could see other waste companies collapse or withdraw, and we would then be left in a second round with no company other than the one to which I refer proceeding to tender. That is one possibility. I pay tribute to Deputies Sherlock, Gannon, Ward and others. We discussed all these potential outcomes and we know that what is proposed would not be a silver bullet. It would give the local authority control, however. It would also give it more power. It would allow it to say that in the context of my area of Finglas, it is not appropriate that because an area is more affluent, people living in that road have access to five bin companies and because somewhere else is less affluent, it is stuck with one bin company. In some cases, bin companies will not even go into certain places or will insist that residents have to bring their wheelie bins up a hill or out onto a main road. That is not right, but there is no way of regulating it because we have competition in the market not competition for the market. I do hear what the Minister of State says in regard to the review. There are many in government who believe that, for a range of reasons, including environmental reasons, matters relating to the circular economy and so on, competition for the market has its positive benefits. In the context of the previous Government, some of our Green Party colleagues were also supportive of this for a range of other reasons relating to delivering the circular economy. From what I hear, one outcome of the review could be the creation of a franchised service. The Minister of State’s commentary, in which he went on to explain all the negatives of a franchised service, does not fill me with hope. I ask him and my colleague Deputy Darragh O’Brien, if they cannot provide a national framework, to consider whether they could empower local authorities to make the decisions to which I refer themselves. Deputy Sherlock stated that no other capital city runs its business this way. That is because they are capital cities. Capital cities should in a position to make way more decisions about everything that happens in their area. If Dublin City Council had been allowed address the housing crisis back in 2012, 2013 or 2014, when it was impacting the city far more than anywhere else, we would have been ahead of the curve. We should be allowing Dublin City Council, if its elected representatives so choose, to establish both competition for the market and its own bin service if it so wishes. Deputy Gannon is right. This is going to involve difficult political choices, particularly as the waiver system that was there came at a cost. It was a direct cost. I think it cost nearly €3 million every year. Councillors had to vote every year for that money and that meant that €3 million went on that waiver and it was not available for other services like parks, libraries and so on. That is what local councillors do. They make those decisions. Sometimes we do not trust our councillors enough and I say that because it was a Fianna Fáil Government that removed the powers of local councillors in regard to waste. It was done because there were not brave decisions being made on large-scale waste disposal and all of those reasons but we have moved on in Ireland. We have far better, committed local representatives. There is a very obvious demand by the people who are elected by Dublin city to change the way they collect their waste. This is something that national government should not be involved. Let them get on with it. Empower them to do it. Let them make the popular and unpopular choices that are part of that. If I was in the Minister of State's place, I would allow the Bill go to Second Stage. We would need significant amendment and other elements to it but I would allow the debate to take place. In the absence of that, I ask that the Minister of State takes on board the comments that have been made here in the House by Members. Should he have the final review and the outcome, he should consider allowing Dublin city to do its own thing. Maybe it should not be limited it to just Dublin city and he should consider allowing any local authority that chooses to collect its own waste to do it in its own way. It is not rocket science. It is waste collection. They should, at the very least, be allowed to decide how that is done.

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The Minister of State has the summer to change his mind.

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