On Thursday the 27th (Sept 2001) all the local county councillors were invited to a meeting in the Liberties to explain their position on the bin tax. About 60 residents turned up to hear what they had to say for themselves.
On Thursday the 27th (Sept 2001) all the local county councillors were invited to a meeting in the Liberties to explain their position on the bin tax. About 60 residents turned up to hear what they had to say for themselves.
Unsurprisingly, not one councillor showed up. Not one sent a representative in their place. They know how unpopular the bin tax is and are running scared. A representative from the revenue department of Dublin Corporation – the man who is in charge of collecting the money did attend and was happy to answer questions on the tax (unfortunately I have forgotten his name).
He said
There are between 172,000 and 180, 000 households in the city.
165,000 bills have been sent out. They haven’t sent out bills for everyone because they don’t have a complete list of households in the city. To make a list they are compiling data from the electoral register and from another source (this might have been the census, but I am not sure). They are missing information on about 7,500 houses. If there is more than one person in a household on the resistor, they are making educated guesses as to who in the household the bill should go to.
At a later point he said that 115,000 bills had been sent out, so there is obviously some discrepancies in the numbers he was giving us.
By mid to late October they expect to know who has paid and who hasn’t. At the moment 30, 000 have paid.
The bills and bins are being sent out along routes followed by the bin men, which could be why some people in areas have them and some people don’t.
They will accommodate people who can’t take bins to a certain extent. They will not have bin routes that mix and match bags and bins. Either your area will be all bins or all bags.
Later on, we will be charged by weight. (He said this in response to an answer about recycling, arguing that if you recycled you’d end up paying less)
On Monday night a picket of a 100 people demonstrated outside City Hall as the corporation met to consider the estimates for the next year. Groups from the Liberties, Walkinstown, North Strand and other areas attended. Although there were 4 motions on the agenda calling for an end to the tax, these were placed at the end of the agendas, and so surprise surprise, were never discussed.
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Making electoral capital out of the campaign?
WORDS Andrew Flood (Follow Andrew on Twitter )