Household refuse charges will be as high as €700 a year for the average family because of legislation introduced in the Dáil yesterday, the Labour party has claimed.
Its environment spokesman, Mr Eamon Gilmore, condemned the Protection of Environment Bill, which he has said will cost "more than any single tax measure introduced on Budget day for the past 10 years".
Mr Gilmore also claimed that the Bill was transferring the costs of building and running incinerators or landfill "lock, stock and barrel" to householders.
However, the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, who introduced the legislation, hit out at Mr Gilmore for what he called "auction politics". He did not deny the comments about charges of up to €700, but said "there is a waste crisis in Ireland".
"To ignore this in the hope that it will somehow disappear will have disastrous effects, environmentally and economically."
Mr Cullen made his comments in a statement after introducing the Bill which will transpose EU waste policy and legislation into Irish law. EU policy operates on the "polluter pays" principle, and Mr Cullen said EU law required that "households, as well as other waste producers, pay for the costs of disposing of their waste".
People who refused to pay for their waste "are doing so simply on the basis of a misguided belief that their law-abiding neighbours should pay for them also. This is not acceptable to me or to those who pay their charges."
Mr Gilmore said the Minister was using an EU directive as "political cover" to bring in an increased tax "by stealth".
In an "undemocratic measure" the Bill would also transfer from local councillors to county managers the power to impose waste charges.
It would also entitle councils not to collect waste from anyone who does not pay their refuse charges. "This is going to lead to additional illegal dumping."
He said the Minister had chastised local authorities for not levying the full cost of the refuse service, which was about €11 per collection. On the Minister's estimates that was €704 a year.
"The Minister knows it is highly unlikely that he would be able to persuade elected members of a local authority, even those from his side of the House, to go the distance and impose charges of about €700 per household for the collection of waste. That is why he is transferring the power to the county manager."
Mr Gilmore also hit out at the "camouflage" in the legislation under which the local authorities or private companies who run incinerators or landfill would have to levy charges that would cover the "full cost of buying the site, the capital cost of establishing the facility, the cost of running it and the cost of closure, remediation and management of the site for at least 30 years after the facility is closed".
While "many householders are quite happy to pay a proportional contribution to this, to introduce a system where they pay the full cost is quite disproportionate".
The debate was adjourned.
