Mayor of Limerick Diarmuid Scully has expressed "serious concerns" about the operations of a refuse collection company which accepted money from members of the public up until the day before it went into liquidation.
Mr Scully said he had been contacted by many people who had paid money over to Limerick Waste Recycling last week in the days before a liquidator was appointed.
The High Court heard last week that the refuse collection company based in Galvone Industrial Estate had debts in the region of €300,000.
An estimated 3,000 householders and businesses were left without a refuse collection service after the liquidator was appointed.
It has emerged that some of the customers had paid in advance for a full year's waste collection service, while up to 1,000 customers had paid for six months' service with several months still remaining on those contracts.
Mr Scully said yesterday that the directors of the company needed to clarify whether they knowingly entered contracts they had no intention of honouring.
"Were the directors of Limerick Waste Recycling aware when they took money from people last week that they would not be providing the service for which they were being paid?
"If so, then I believe that what we are dealing with here is fraud and that it should be the subject of a criminal investigation," he said.
At Monday's meeting of Limerick City Council, city manager Tom Mackey confirmed that the company had no contract with the council and that there was no onus on the local authority to collect the mounting waste.
Councillor Jim Long said he had already approached the two other established service providers in the Limerick area to ask if they would collect the outstanding waste as a goodwill gesture, but both companies declined the invitation