City ‘may halt €3m waivers on refuse charges’

CORK City may not be able to continue to forego €3 million in refuse charges each year, city manager Joe Gavin has warned.

Last night, opponents of the move vowed to fight any attempt to abolish full waivers.

“The 100% refuse collection waiver could be lost. We have to consider the possibility,” Cork city manager Joe Gavin told this week’s city council meeting.

“Some local authorities don’t waive anything. We have one of the most generous waiver systems in the country. It cost us €3m to provide the waiver system in 2003,” he said.

“We’re hard-pushed to find the funds. It’s getting more difficult to find the income to fund the expenditure. We have to provide a service but we have to secure the funding to do that.”

Anti-service charges campaigners reacted angrily last night to the comments.

Socialist Party Cllr Mick Barry described the comments as a veiled threat to thousands of pensioners, people on social welfare and people on low incomes.

Joe Moore of the Householders Against Service Charges (HASC) group said he would encourage people to mount a campaign of non-payment of this “double form of taxation”.

Mr Moore spent four days in Cork Prison in 2001 for refusing to pay his service charges.

“If I have to do it again I would. It’s obviously not something I would be looking forward to but I would take a principled stand,” he said.

Mr Moore said HASC will be closely monitoring the situation in the run-up to the council’s estimates meeting in September.

Cork City Council grants full or partial waivers for refuse collection on a case-by-case basis.

Single person households with an income less than €167.30 per week and other households with an income less than €278.80 qualify for a full waiver.

Two old age pensioners living together, getting the top rate of pension, therefore exceeding the income guidelines, also qualify for a full waiver provided they have no other source of income. Partial waivers are granted where household income marginally exceeds the guidelines.

But in general, no waiver is granted where income is greater than €11,000 per annum (€210 per week) for a single person household or €18,000 per annum (€350 per week) for other households.

OAPs and people in receipt of other long-term social welfare benefits with no other source of income also qualify automatically.

In 2003, the city council processed 18,229 applications for waivers, of which 11,197 were granted.

Of these, 8,961 were full waivers and 2,236 were partial waivers, costing the council €3m.