Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
DUBLIN CITY COUNCIL (DCC) is slowly drawing closer to regaining control of the city’s domestic waste collection, with a cross-party Oireachtas working group set up to explore the matter today.
DCC councillors met with TDs, Senators and trade union representatives today in what turned out to be a successful attempt at rallying support for their plans to re-enter the market for domestic waste collection.
A number of councillors, led by Sinn Féin’s Daithí Doolan, have long fought to regain control of Dublin city’s waste collection services but have been met with various road blocks over the years.
Today, they received the support of a number of TDs and Senators, with a cross-party working group set up to research the remunicipalisation of the service, draft legislation and guide it through the Oireachtas.
The need for legislation on the matter was established after an independent report by the Institute of Public Administration warned that there could be major legal challenges from existing private refuse collection companies without laws being in place.
Speaking to The Journal, Cllr. Doolan said that his preference would be for DCC to manage refuse collection directly or for a regional operation to be put in place under the four local authorities.
“What happens in Dublin is unique. Globally, there is nowhere else in the world where the waste management process is as chaotic as it is here,” Doolan said.
He added that Dublin is the “Wild West of Europe” when it comes to waste collection.
The cross-party working group set up today included Labour senator Marie Sherlock, Fianna Fáil TD Paul McAuliffe, Independent TD Joan Collins and Sinn Féin TD Darren O’Rourke.
“I’m personally of the view that this isn’t just about the bins. This is a bigger conversation about how we manage waste within our communities,” Marie Sherlock told The Journal.
“Local Authorities should be providing waste collection services. It’s composting, recycling, and of course the black bin waste as well.
“Ideally we want the local authority to ultimately have responsibility for how these services are provided in their area.
“We don’t necessarily need to reinvent the wheel here. There are brilliant examples in many European cities of how they manage waste,” Sherlock added.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Bin collection with us started reasonable enough price wise with competition for our business as intended. No competition any more, one service and price is what I would call expensive, give it back to the council, I get little for my property tax, that would at least be something.
@Eddie Garvey: collection services monopolised by one company who appears to also own competitors in my area. They have steadily increased costs and now charge for recycling lifts and by weight, the same with food waste. This is replicated in large parts of the country. Like other services farmed out for competition, it only costs us the consumer far more. Why has no one questioned where our ever increasing taxes go as it seems our services are dwindling or nonfunctioning but costing ever more. Aah the sweet aroma of capitalism.
@Spanner: you typed all that on a phone that was made thanks to capitalism.
Can the rest of the country get back by their bins being collected by their local government (authority) ….
Oh I forgot this a “Pale Government” who doesn’t understand there’s a country outside of the ‘pale’ as they have shoved every Undocumented Tom, Dick and Harry into Rural Ireland with no one understanding who they are….
@Luka Roche: only a journal nutjob could turn this story into an anti-immigrant nonsensical rant
@eoin fitzpatrick: I understand what he means. Put it simply our government doesn’t care about anything outside of the Pale. They only care about what goes on inside the Pale.
@eoin fitzpatrick: and do you live inside or outside the pale?
@alien mars: not really, some county councils get up to 50 times more money per capita than those in Dublin. LPT tax collected in Dublin is also spread around the country instead of it being kept in Dublin, and you wonder why services are so poor in Dublin…
@Luka Roche: The idea being that once it is done in dublin coucils elsewhere can follow DCC and get all waste collections back to be done properly.
If you read the article and understood it. It is about this being done in one council area Dublin City Council.
The last comment like the forst is totally iincorrect!
@Luka Roche: nobody understands who anyone is until you get to know them, so maybe try to help them integrate into the community
@he didnt take the 120k because he already got it s: I took some of these people in and they got everything handed to them from Free Travel passes, to meal allowances while they looked for a broadband connection to contact their family to bring them over here.
While my ESB and EIR Phone bill rocketed to E1200 a month and it was only E600
That’s why they were ordered to leave my house and got accommodated straight away when I complained.
@Luka Roche: Cool spoof bro….at least they weren’t beyond being pale ehh!
@Luka Roche: blame your own TD’S and Councillor’s.
@eoin fitzpatrick: plus people outside “the pale” have a disproportionately higher political representation in the dáil. But us Irish would never let the facts get in the way of a chance to blame somebody else.
@Luka Roche: why in the name of god would DCC be responsible for what your local council does and doesn’t do exactly?
@alien mars: this guy is in Dublin City Council. It has nothing to do with the government
@Luka Roche: maybe if you’d like to pay the same level of property tax we pay in dublin.
@Luka Roche: Cool story
@eoin fitzpatrick: Dublin is :poor” ? Gtfo. It has rail, bus, DART, LUAS “NCH:, Dublin Airport and M50. Guess who’s paying for that ?
Three different bin services collect on different days in our estate.
Not very environmentally friendly…
It would be nice if bins were collected by one service once a week.
Safer for children too.
@Pat the Baker: do you think they can use the one truck for household waste, recycling and glass bottle bins?
Finally, politicians doing something useful, hopefully, a model for the rest of the country comes out of this.
That would be great if DCC collected waste again at least they clean up spillages after themselves
@Pauline Cahill: You may not like the price they are going to charge you.
I can’t see DDC being as efficient.
Would they ever just ask the Spanish or Germans how to do it. Absolute muppetry over here.
@Temp Stuff: Might be a good idea if they Kermitted to doing that, alright…
@Temp Stuff: agree! Spain manages its waste so well! Underground bins for all residents! Streets all washed down every evening ! A splendid operation. We can do nothing right in this country
@Temp Stuff: I grew up with the German system and still find it brilliant, but I don’t think it would be applicable in Ireland. In the basic setup you separate into eight different bins (it varies depending on where you live). It is enforced with high fines and every house has this one person (usually retired) who tells you off if you make a mistake, tells all your neighbours and reports you so that you get fined. I can‘t imagine people here would do the same. You are not calling the Police all the time. When I came to Ireland I seperated the Aluminium lid, cardboard wrap and plastic of my yoghurt pots and rinsed them before disposing of them and was laughed at. Another thing is that apartments in the city centre usually don‘t come with storage space. There would just be no space for it.
@Temp Stuff: they charge more and, certainly in the case of Spain, there’s no kerb side collection.
What problem are the councillors trying to solve? Is it profiteering, illegal waste or economies of scale? Knowing politicians, they are probably peddling the myth that if the Council do it, it’s free
@Mick Duvanny: Your question is the same I would like to know the answer too.
I don’t think the collection as such is a problem, but that the rubbish is been put out in bags.
And for everyone moaning about “the Pale”: This is about the DCC, which only a small part of Dublin. Bin collection seems to work everywhere else in Dublin, except in the city/DCC.
@Wolfgang Bonow: Strange but when I ask people from other parts of the coutry, they say that it is terrible where they are too.
It is just the DCC councillors kicked up about it.
Joann Collins TD was one of the leaders of the Bin Campaign.
@Wolfgang Bonow: Except that all local authorities are left with the dumping scourge, which results from the private waste collectors not bothering with homes & business’s that do not sign up for prepay or direct debit. The 2 outfits that service Dublin 5 have left enforcement to DCC, & this doesn’t seem to be effective either. Also, they now will be imposing surcharges for blue bagged green waste, which DCC have stopped collecting, threatening fines.
So compliant residents who maintain verges & bag leaves to clear drains, are to pay for neighbourhood commitment & effort.
This mess needs urgent remedy, so get on with it.
Now that the waste is nearly sorted what will they do about all the wasters in the kip
@: ‘Free houses’ is the ask I think
@: ask your ma
@Kevin McCormack: she said throw them in the stinkin liffey, she is probably right
Looking to take it back now when in charges are sky high, they want in on the money
I remember there was one bin and the collection was free… That is not going to happen again though…
@Dominic Leleu: no, you’ll have to drive to the local recycling centre with all the rest of it
@Dominic Leleu: It was not free, our taxes paid for it. Over the last 15 years our taxes have been squandered by successive FFG governments. I remember when they privatised the bin collection I can’t remember which one of their ministers said “its only 2e a week “. How’s that turned out?
Can I say that I am anti war here or is it illegal to want peace in the world
@: only if you say it about Ukraine
It’s so idiotic here – firstly there is no kerbside collection of glass recycling, secondly, the privatisation of waste services has created a massive incentive for people to dump. There are people out there who refuse to pay for waste collection and you can see the results in our wild and forestry areas, dumping all over the place. We need a “single payer system”, whereby the council tenders waste collection services for each area, the homeowners gets bins, and an annual weight allowance. If we go over that allowance we get a bill per kg. The recyclers need to actually recycle the stuff too.
@MTB Mayo: Agreed that the hands off privatisation is a total mess, with non compliant households & even some business’s not signed up for the 2 pay options,prepay or direct debit, & no effective enforcement to ensure compliance.
The simplest remedy is to just franchise the operators to service ALL waste collection/ processing by zones, to eliminate duplications & renewable every 4 or 5 years to impose performance standards. This is both environmentally & logistically efficient for the communities & operators.
Any compensatory aspect in this switch can be structured by offsets against franchise fees over a period.
Whatever remediation course emerges, it needs to be set in train urgently, as it remains a privatisation fiasco as it functions now.
@MTB Mayo: dumping was always a problem, long before privatisation.
And if your on the dole, or a pensioner, and you get a rise in the budget, your bin charges go up.
@Father Ted: same with rent
Remunicipalisation. What a great word. Scrabble fans take note. Should it be hyphenated I wonder?
The cash cow that got away.
People point out that rubbish collection in Spain is well organised. Here everyone brings their black bag rubbish to a bin on the street and the same with glass, plastic and cardboard. There is no household collection of household waste and no brown bins either. Another thing to mention is that most people in towns and cities live in apartments. Dumping still happens though. People also pay for their bins and water through local charges which are higher than Ireland
@Peter Byrne: People here don’t like facts like that.It doesn’t suit the ‘everything is ffg’s fault’
Yea, same providers but a ‘Dublin Bin Authority’ to set the area & prices
Dirty old kip alright
@: not as bad as 90% of rural kippy towns.At least we have everything up here.
Are DCC capable of even this simple task?
Get Tony Soprano to sort it out, badabing
IT Should never have been monopolised in the first place. The Greed enivitably took over.
Ask the Sopranos, they’ll get it sorted.
have your say