Unions from the More Power to You (MP2U) campaign held a successful and productive meeting in Leinster House on the 19th of October to encourage the establishment of an Oireachtas sub-committee on the re-municipalisation of waste services.

Parties from across the political spectrum were present as were members of the Dublin City Council sub-group on re-municipalisation.

The MP2U campaign, made up of Fórsa, SIPTU and Connect trade unions, aims to enhance the role and powers of local government, and has sought to bring about changes that would allow local authorities to re-enter the domestic waste market.

The meeting followed an earlier briefing on the topic in May when an IPA research paper on the re-municipalisation of waste in Dublin City Council was launched.

The meeting secured general support for the establishment of an Oireachtas sub-committee on the issue and members agreed to draft an initial workplan. This agreement was the culmination of years of work from Fórsa and other MP2U member unions on re-municipalisation and presents an opportunity for genuine change in the area of domestic waste collection.

Fórsa’s Head of Local Government and Local Services and Municipal Employees’ Divisions Richy Carrothers welcomed the engagement citing it as “extremely useful”.

“An agreement has been reached to establish an all-party sub-committee with the intention of drafting a workplan and timeline to progress legislation on re-municipalisation of waste services. This is a milestone in the campaign and something we have worked hard to achieve,” he said.

Richy explained that almost one in four households in the state currently have no domestic waste collection service while the Government has adopted an exclusively market-based approach to domestic waste collection, with side-by-side competition within a single local authority area.

“The privatisation agenda has played far too great a role in the provision of public services for too long. Unions, through the More Power to You campaign, are pushing against that agenda, the reality is local authority public services should be delivered by public sector workers and we will continue to strive towards this,” he said.

The More Power to You coalition, campaigns for enhanced local government services in Ireland, and works to enhance local democracy, and to start a conversation about the future of local government and local services that reflect the needs of Ireland’s changing and diverse society.

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