New tag system for collection of rubbish will see more disruption

Major disruption to rubbish collections in the South Dublin County Council area has been threatened this week as the council begins its new "pay by volume" system.

The tag and label system will identify householders in arrears and their bins will not be collected until they come to an arrangement with the council.

However, the Anti Bin-Tax Campaigns group have said that "organised groups of residents" will insist on all refuse being collected when the bin trucks do their rounds in Tallaght, Clondalkin, Lucan, Palmerstown and Greenhills. Residents have threatened to either block the trucks or put the rubbish in the trucks themselves if the refuse workers do not take all the rubbish.

From today, householders will have to attach a label to their grey bin when leaving it for collection.

Residents who have paid the annual fee in advance or have been granted a waiver have been supplied with a blue label, showing that they do not need to attach a tag. The tags cost €6 for a standard bin and €3 for a small bin.

Those who have cleared arrears or are in the process of doing so have been supplied with a yellow label, authorising them to use bin tags.

Mr Mick Murphy, secretary of the Anti Bin-Tax Campaigns said there was likely to be "massive opposition" from householders to the new tag system. "The highlight of the next few days in South Dublin will be the amount of bins left out without tags," he said. "Stickers which are to be displayed to show there are no arrears have started to appear but they are few and far between."

However, South Dublin County Council has insisted that there has been "tremendous support" for the charges and payments were being made on a daily basis. According to the council, about 75 per cent of householders who were liable to bin charges had paid them by last Wednesday.

On Tuesday, 500 householders made payments either online, using credit card, by telephone or in person, a council statement said.

Mr Murphy said opposition to the bin tax had deepened since the Fingal protests last year and there was a "palatable sense of anger" against this and other so-called stealth taxes. "All of this will become very evident throughout these huge suburbs of Dublin this week," he said.