Dublin City Council needs to “reset” waste collection plan, says Sherlock

Labour TD Marie Sherlock has called on Dublin City Council to “urgently review” their proposed plans to ban bin-bag disposal in many parts of the north inner city. 

The Dublin Central TD hosted a meeting on the evening of June 16, with over 300 residents in attendance; Sherlock said the attendance was a sign that people are “angry” about the lack of consultation on the bin bag ban.

“The reality is that these botched changes reflect the level of dysfunction when it comes to waste management in our city,” Sherlock said.

“Instead of Dublin City Council taking ownership over alternatives and making the bin-bag ban workable, they have left it to private companies to bring the solutions. This is a complete abdication of responsibility towards residents across the north inner city.”

Sherlock stated, “the outcome from the meeting is clear; Dublin City Council must now press the reset button on these changes and engage with the north inner city.”

“I have said explicitly that I want to see the bin-bag ban made workable for local communities. I’m conscious that there are many others who argue that they want to hold onto bags. Whatever people’s preference, the consensus is very clear: we need to have real engagement with communities on what is appropriate and possible.”

The Labour TD said, “we support any changes that will make our city cleaner, but they must be done right.”

We cannot accept a situation where Dublin City Council devolves responsibility for alternatives to for-profit waste management companies, where households will end up paying dramatically greater amounts for waste collection in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis and they will have less incentive to reduce waste.”

Sherlock said she was “concerned” that there would be more wheelie bins left on streets, as people would not have the space to store them in their homes.

“These changes should not be a fait accompli. Dublin City Council have a real opportunity here to engage with residents and bring innovative solutions to the table; residents now demand that.”

Sherlock said that the local community wants to work with Dublin City Council on the issue – but now the ball is in the council’s court.

Discussing the meeting, Sherlock said, “there is a real will for solutions and engagement. There is a clear recognition that at the heart of this issue is the diminishing power of local government and the dysfunction in how we manage waste in our city.”

A Labour motion, titled the Waste Management (Single Household Waste Collection Service) Bill 2026, will move to the second stage of the Dáil in July.

The bill, introduced by Sherlock in January, calls for the re-municipalisation of waste management services.

“This debate presents a real opportunity to transform waste by creating a responsibility on landlords to ensure waste collection for their properties and introducing a single tender for waste management in the city. Crucially, we see this Bill as a step in the right direction towards the re-municipalisation of waste,” she explained.

“Dublin City Council must go back to the drawing board, engage with impacted communities, and come to the table with the much-needed transformative solutions to clean up our streets,” she said.

North Inner City councillor Janice Boylan has also been vocal on the issue, saying that residents in the area have not been consulted on the changes and there are “no alternatives being exposed.”

The Sinn Féin councillor said that alternatives do exist compared to the current Dublin system of waste management – “gull-proof bags are used by many councils in Britain, while local authorities in Spain have large secure community bins at the end of roads where residents can leave their waste bags and recyclables,” she noted.

Boylan said the situation is “yet another example of how the privatisation of bins and waste services was a bad move for Dubliners.”

“Sinn Féin has long argued that waste collection services must be brought back under public control to ensure that essential services are operated in the best interests of the people, not private profit,” she said. 

“Waste management is an essential service for the people of Dublin. It is time for the government to take these services back under public control,” Boylan stated.