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Bin charge shock for jobless dad

Friday, 26 June 2009

AN UNEMPLOYED Northsider has criticised Fingal County Council over its bin charge system after his application for a waiver on the grounds of redundancy was refused. Hartsown resident Robert Smith, who was made redundant last January, was stunned when he discovered he didn’t qualify for the waiver scheme even after losing his job. He now has to pay the full e110 annual charge, even thought he didn’t use the service for the first six months of the year in an effort to save money while he was waiting for his waiver application to be processed. “I was the main breadwinner for the family and my fiancée works part-time so she can look after our young son,” he explained. “When I lost my job we struggled to pay the mortgage, pay for food and cover all the household bills. “We looked into the council’s waiver system which would at least have helped us to afford our waste disposal. “We waited for around four months for our waiver scheme application to be processed and in the end we were told that we didn’t qualify because my partner pays income tax on the 20 hours she works each week.” Mr Smith described the measures he took to discard his rubbish over the months while his waiver scheme application was being processed. “My parents live quite close by so I used to go around to them every now and then with my bags and tags to put in with their rubbish,” he told Northside People. “When we got the notice saying we didn’t qualify for the waiver we got in touch with the council to try to pay for the annual charge. “The problem now is that the council are telling us that we must pay the full annual charge even though we didn’t use the waste service for the first six months of the year. “It’s ridiculous. No one would accept such a policy from other utility companies so why should we accept it from the council? “When my fiancée Gemma called the council on the matter they seemed far more interested in what we had been doing with our rubbish for the past six months. “She was advised that we should go to a private waste company if we wanted to avoid paying for the extra six months.” Robert added: “I can’t understand why the council would advise householders to use private companies instead of using their own service.” The father-of-one believes there may be many other people in his position. “The annual charge of e110 is big enough, especially in these times when there are so many people without work,” he said. “Also, we already pay e8 for every bin we put out. The council’s service is very good but it’s costly. “I think we should begin a new initiative where we can save money by ‘bin pooling’. Maybe two neighbours could get together to share the annual charge and arrange it that so that they leave their rubbish bags out on alternating weeks. “I know we don’t have that much rubbish and that our neighbour who lives on her own doesn’t have that much either so it’s something worth investigating.” Fingal County Council confirmed to Northside People that its waiver scheme only applies to households that don’t pay income tax. Residents who qualify for the waiver receive free bin tags and domestic waste stickers. The council spokesperson said that all applications are processed efficiently. However, there was a slight backlog this year due to the number of people applying for the scheme. “Within the first five months of 2009 alone we have had over 10,300 applications for bin waivers; in contrast the total number of applications in 2008 was only 10,000,” she stated. “It should be noted that during this period our staff were also processing over 60,000 waste charges invoices for existing customers. “Where a waiver application is incomplete, or we request additional information, this can delay the decision time. However, even during the busiest period this year (February-April), decisions were notified no later than six weeks.” The Fingal spokesperson said the annual waste charge for all customers is for the full year. “Payment options at the beginning of this year allowed residents to pay the entire charge in one payment, or alternatively in two instalments in January and June,” she explained. “The annual flat charge is e110, with an additional e8 tag every time the black bin is presented for collection. “Where payment was not received in January or February, our environment department continued to lift un-stickered bins for a number of weeks after that, up until the end of March and the beginning of April.” She added: “Partial payment (e55) from this point of the year onwards is only accepted where a person can provide evidence that they have only just moved to a new address within the county or are a new customer to the council’s waste collection service.