DÚN LAOGHAIRE-Rathdown County Council has announced it is to withdraw its household waste collection service from July.
The decision follows a report from council auditor Anthony Doheny which revealed almost €27 million outstanding in arrears from households, many of which had never paid their environmental waste charge since it was introduced in 2000.
The report said almost 9,000 households had run up arrears of €10 million from 2000 to 2004, and had “virtually paid nothing at all” towards the charges. A further €10 million-plus was owed by more than 14,000 householders who had since taken their business to private bin operators. The service was losing about €3.5 million a year, it said.
The council also cited the outcome of a recent High Court case which supported unrestricted competition in the waste market in Dublin as one reason for their decision to privatise the service.
The council said yesterday it had already advertised the tender for the service and a contract would be awarded within the next few weeks. A spokeswoman stressed householders would not be left without a collection service.
A spokesman for private waste operators said the decision raised very serious questions as to the continued development of the Poolbeg incinerator.
“There are now serious questions as to how Dublin’s local authorities are going to secure enough waste to fulfil their obligation to provide 320,000 tonnes of waste to Poolbeg each and every year for 25 years,” said Brendan Keane of the Irish Waste Management Association.
A spokeswoman for Dublin City Council said the Dún Laoghaire initiative had “no implications whatsoever” for the waste-to-energy plant.
“Irrespective of collection methods, waste collection must continue to be processed and disposed of in accordance with . . . the EU waste hierarchy,” she said.
She said the three other Dublin local authorities, Dublin City Council, Fingal County Council and South Dublin County Council, continued to provide waste management services.
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council only operates the “black bin” service, while “green bin” services are provided by a private contractor. The council has been attempting to extricate itself from the waste collection business since at least October 2008 when county manager Owen Keegan cited rising costs, competition and a 3½-hour working day for waste collection operatives.
The council said there would be no compulsory redundancies as a result of the decision and the 25 staff would be redeployed, primarily to street cleaning, water services and the parks department. “We expect to see an immediate improvement in these areas as a result of this,” said a spokeswoman.