Cullen rejects rates claim

The real cost of disposing of household waste is about €11 a week, according the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, who has rejected Fine Gael claims that the Government is effectively re-introducing rates on houses through service charges.

He said, however, that the "polluter pays principle" included householders, who were responsible for the disposal of their own waste, and at current levels householders were being subsidised, and this could not be sustained.

Fine Gael's environment spokesman, Mr Bernard Allen, called on the Minister to "do the decent thing and announce that Fianna Fáil has done a full circle" and that domestic rates were back. Local authorities had got the go-ahead to impose charges of up to €600 for refuse charges and a water charge of up to €200 on each household.

Authorities had been forced into a situation where they were increasing rent to old-age pensioners by €9 a week, long before they got their €10 a week in social welfare benefits, he said.

The Minister insisted there was no question of rates being introduced. However, the provision of waste management, water systems and water delivery to homes was becoming very expensive, he said, and "rightly so because the public have demanded higher standards".

Members of the House "should understand that the 'polluter pays principle' is a legal requirement".

On the best assessment from local authority managers, "the real cost of disposing of household waste is around €11 a week. That is an average figure. I'm not saying that everybody has to pay for this but we want to put that into the public domain that people are paying substantially less than the real costs and that they are being subsidised for that. That is not sustainable in legal terms."

He said Mr Allen's €200 figure for water charges did not come from him or his department. Defending the funding allocation to local authorities, the Minister said record levels of funding had been allocated, including €626 million for general purpose grants this year. That was a 6.4 per cent increase on last year.