Crisis struck County Council fails to adopt rate

Faced with the most serious waste management crisis in its 116 year history, and a dire financial situation, there was no surprise that, at the end of a marathon annual estimates meeting yesterday, the twenty three elected members of Waterford County Council failed to adopt a county rate for 2006.

They will reconvene on January 4th just two days before the deadline date for adopting the rate. Failure to do so on that second occasion could put the local authority in the firing line for dissolution and its replacement by a Minister for the Environment-appointed Commissioner.

In his book of estimates the county manager, Ray O’Dwyer, disclosed that expenditure in the coming year will be just under €64 million, but with income projected at €59 million there is a shortfall of almost €5 million.

For two hours before the normal meeting the councillors met behind closed doors, and when they resumed in public session in the afternoon there was ninety minutes of shadow boxing before buckling down to what the county manager acknowledged was the most difficult book of estimates he had ever been involved in.

Defending his decision to seek an annual flat charge of €150 per household for the refuse service in additional to the separate charges already in existence per bin collection, the county manager said this was the minimum required to enable it to pay its way.

He disclosed that €7.5 million will be required to rehabilitate the landfill in Dungarvan which is closed and the one in Tramore which is closing at the end of the month.

“The council will then be without a landfill of its own and we will have to face the substantial cost of transporting our waste to Carlow,” he said.

“We either impose the full economic charge or we get out of the service,” said Mr O’Dwyer, who added that he and other senior officials had already beaten a well-worn track to Dublin seeking as much funding as they could from central Government.

From the off, however, opposition to the proposed new €150 charge was obvious across all of the political parties, with Labour’s Cllr Paddy O’Callaghan describing it as “savage’ and his party colleague Cllr Teresa Wright warning that it will drive many “ordinary’ working class families into poverty.

“All of this,” she added, “when our Government is squandering good money after bad.”

Claims by council officialdom that the average refuse bill for householders for 2006 would be €212 were rubbished by several councillors, with Cllr James Tobin (FF) adamant that the figure would be much closer to €600.

“That,” he said, “is totally out of the question.”

The Councillors will try all over again on January 4th but the signs are looking grimly ominous.