Last month the High Court gave the go-ahead for Limerick City Council to implement its new scaled-down waiver scheme.

The 'Mr Binman' company has won the tender to provide the service for those who are entitled to a waiver. For the rest of this year (July-December) households who were previously entitled to a 100% waiver will be entitled to 13 free collections, i.e. once a fortnight, while those previously on 70% waivers will have 9 free collections, with 7 collections for 50% waivers. If households need more collections, they will have to pay one of the private operators.

Since Limerick City Council privatised the bin collection service in July 2000 and bin charges were introduced that September, they have used the existence of a waiver scheme to "prove" that bin charges work by "helping the most vulnerable and least well off". But the last five years have seen an ever-increasing level of indiscriminate dumping - an act of desperation by more and more householders faced with spiralling bin charges and a build up of rubbish in their homes.

"Pay by weight" is a con, as this only makes up a small part of the bill. Even if you recycle everything that is recyclable you only receive a tiny discount. Also, there have been accusations of overcharging: some people who have weighed their own bins have found discrepancies between this and the weight charged for.
Low paid workers cannot avail of the tax credit against bin charges, since their wages are so low that they pay little or no income tax.

While fighting against the privatisation of the service in 2000, the Socialist Party pointed out that the waiver scheme was only there to try to divide the anti-bin charges campaign, and would eventually be phased out. This is now what the Council is trying to do.

A fortnightly (or less frequent) service is not adequate for any household that has food leftovers, nappies or sanitary waste to deal with. The potential health problems associated with the build up of this waste in people's homes doesn't bear thinking about, and throws us back to the conditions of the 19th century, before bin collection services were implemented. The only solution to these problems is for a universal publicly owned household bin collection service to be paid for from central funds. The amount we pay through income tax, VAT and other taxes is more than our fair share.