International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

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scope for inconsistency geographically and temporally. A single regulatory
structure applicable throughout the State would help encourage private
participation in the market.’
Whether such abuses actually occurred, or whether they did not, might be considered
idle speculation. What may be at issue is that the existing system allows for the
perception of abuses and grievances to persist. The question then becomes one of
whether these are sufficiently of concern to require change, and if so, what these
changes should be.
Eunomia noted, in previous work, that the varied roles of local authorities may have
served to keep landfill gate fees high in the past. 97 When local authorities were the
major operators of landfills, and where they required additional revenue to support
their activities (especially following the eradication of rates), then it would have been
useful to raise gate fees as a means of raising revenue for other services. Now, as
more void space is consented, and as regional monopolies are weakened with the
emergence of the private sector in landfilling, so gate fees appear to be falling. The
arrival of the private sector in landfill operation might, therefore, have led to falling
landfill gate fees, with the indirect effect of possibly giving rise to budgetary problems
in other aspects of local government.
This view is echoed in a Forfás report, which notes that landfill gate fees in Ireland the
third highest of the eleven countries used in their analysis – that is after a drop from
€135 in 2006 to €127 in 2007. 98 The current situation where the local authority has
the power to regulate and participate in the market has caused inefficiencies. The
OECD notes that private operators claim that when local authorities were the sole
operators of landfills gate fees were used as a source of revenue. Following the
introduction of a higher number of private landfill operators gate fees have fallen. 99
It should be noted that the degree to which the local authorities’ role allows them to
distort the market ‘in their favour’ is not entirely a ‘one-way’ consideration. The fact
remains that local authorities have additional responsibilities in the operational
sense, over and above the collection of waste, and the management of that collected
waste, which are do not pre-occupy the private sector providers. These include cleanup
of old landfills, operation of CA sites (and bring sites), provision of information /
education and provision of street cleaning services, whilst local authorities may also
operate waiver schemes for low-income households.
97 Eunomia, with TOBIN (2007) Waste Policy, Planning and Regulation in Ireland, Final Report for
Greenstar.
98 Forfás (2008) Waste Management Benchmarking Analysis and Policy Priorities, available at:
http://www.forfas.ie/media/forfas080528_waste_benchmarking.pdf. The point made by Forfas is fine
insofar as it goes, but the reality is that of the ten countries and regions chosen, 6 (Massachusetts,
Flanders, Austria, Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark) had implemented landfill bans of varying
breadth. Consequently, for many wastes, the costs of landfilling are effectively infinite unless some
form of exemption can be found.
99 OECD (2008) Ireland: Toward an Integrated Public Service, Paris: OECD, available at:
http://www.oecd.org/document/31/0,3343,en_2649_33735_40529119_1_1_1_1,00.html