Over 40,000 people to have bin charge debts wiped out

More than 40,000 people who failed to pay Dublin City Council bin collection charges are to have their debts wiped by the council.

However, the council plans to pursue 919 other people who collectively owe €1.2 million in unpaid waste charges.

The council exited the household bin collection market in January 2012, selling the service to private waste firm Greyhound Recycling.

As part of the deal Greyhound agreed to collect unpaid waste charges of €13.8 million.

About 30 per cent of the council’s former 140,000 customers have still not paid their waste charge debts. Just under €7 million remains outstanding, but the council has determined that €5.7 million of that is “uncollectable”.

“There are 41,792 accounts involved and with quite a number of those the invoice was sent to the occupier of the residence.

"The advice available to the council is that it would be impossible to recover those in legal proceedings," Vincent Norton, executive manager of the council's environment section, said.

In other cases, the amounts were too small to be economically viable to collect he said.

Statute of limitations

“Outstanding accounts less than €1,000 wouldn’t be economic to follow up. The cost of pursuing them would be in excess of that, and for outstanding accounts greater than six years, the statue of limitations kicks in. ”

However, the council does plan to pursue 919 people who owe in excess of €1,000, to combined total of €1.2 million.

Sinn Féin councillor Noeleen Reilly said it was unfair to target certain households because their debt was "easier" to collect.

“With the majority of this debt written off, it seems quite unfair to go after the minority for the remaining balance. At this stage all these debts should be written off.”

She said it was also unfair that one household that had a debt of €950 would not be pursued while another with a debt of €1,200 would.

“All this will do is put a lot of stress on people, particularly people seen as easy targets.”

Mr Norton said it was reasonable to try and recover the debt. “We believe it is fair to try in collect the balance if we can, as it is a legitimate debt.”

He said the council would seek to recover debts through the conveyancing process when debtors tried to sell their houses.

“It might be worthwhile considering selling on the debt if we can’t collect it,” he added.

Waste charges were introduced in Dublin about 15 years ago, and led to an anti-bin tax campaign that involved non-payment and the blockading of lorries.

Socialist Party politicians Joe Higgins TD and Cllr Clare Daly, now a TD, went to prison during the campaign for defying a High Court order banning them from obstructing the waste collection service.

While the campaign petered out, collection rates remained low, leading to the council’s decision to privatise the service.