Tralee Town Council has finally passed a business plan for this year with councillors voting by ten to two to accept a revised budget.
This was the fifth vote on the contentious plan and if it had been rejected the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Mr Cullen would have abolished the council.
But with local elections only months away, the vote was passed.
The council is struggling under loan repayments for a number of tourism projects. The Jeanie Johnston famine ship is costing €235,000 per annum and will do so for the next 15 years.
Tralee Mayor, Cllr Terry O'Brien (Lab), told ireland.comthe council decided in its revised plan to halve its waste collection service, cutting the number of bin lorries operating from two to one.
This move was forced upon the council because of stiff competition offered by the three private waste collection services in the Tralee region.
"This services are unhindered by our obligations, such as supplying a service to people with waivers and so on. So its no a level playing field," Cllr O'Brien said.
The benchmarking payments financially "crucified" the council he added.
"Paying out benchmarking cost us €550,000 but we only got €300,000 from the Minister. That left us with an additional bill of €250,000 for this year".
The council is also labouring under the cost of tourism projects such as the county museum, the ship, an unfinished canal, and a steam train, which are estimated to cost up to €700,000.