The waste-management companies have said plastic bottles and cans are the most valuable items in the household green bins and that, because they do not get them any more, they want to put up the price of the collection of these bins. The Taoiseach did not answer Deputy Mary Lou McDonald's question. Will he countenance the increase in the price of green bin collection because of the policy of profit-making from it? If the bottles and cans were valuable, the companies should never have been charging for green bin collection. However, they were and now want to increase the charge. Will the Taoiseach say to the companies that they must not do this and that the market must not crucify people during a cost-of-living crisis, when waste management should never have been privatised? Will the Taoiseach answer another question that Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked and that I am going to repeat: does he agree with the Opposition that waste management should be taken back into public control and run publicly on a not-for-profit basis?

I answered that question the last time. That is not currently the Government's plan.

On the specific issues, we do need to have an evidence base here rather than just accept what a waste company, with the greatest respect to it, or any other organisation says. The charges applied by waste management companies are managed by those companies but they are subject to compliance with relevant legislation, including contract and consumer legislation. It is a condition of the permits under which waste collectors operate to charge fees that respect the polluter-pays principle and to incentivise the segregation of waste. The National Waste Collection Permit Office has responsibility for issuing all waste collection permits and it is now engaging on this matter, including in respect of some of the information or the charges or suggestions being put forward by the companies.