Debt collector to chase 7,000 who haven’t paid bin charges

Cork County Council has appointed a debt collection agency to chase down nearly 7,000 people who owe €1.8m in unpaid refuse collection bills.

The money is still owed to the council, which disposed of its refuse collection service to a private company in Sept 2012.

Debt collection agency Stubbs Gazette this week began sending out demands to householders on a list of defaulters supplied to it by the local authority.

A council spokesman said that, in total, 6,800 people still owe an average of €264.70.

However, the size of the outstanding debts will vary between former customers, depending on when they last paid bills, which were on a quarterly basis until the council sold the service to the North Cork-based company Country Clean.

Despite being asked by councillors on several occasions what action officials were going to take to recover the money, no attempt was reportedly made by the local authority to issue any demands to customers after Sept 2010.

A council spokesman confirmed this was the case.

However, he said moves were taken last year to outsource the collection of the €1.8m owed.

“A decision was taken in 2012 to outsource this and we went through the public tendering service. Stubbs Gazette won that tender. The tendering process took about six months to complete and Stubbs Gazette is now sending out letters to people.”

He said the council would not be commenting on the terms of the deal reached with the debt-collecting company, or what percentage of the money recovered would end up in the hands of the local authority.

“People are well aware they owe the council this money. Bills were always issued on a quarterly basis for the service,” said the spokesman.

However, some councillors say they are not happy with the way council officials have handled the situation.

Cllr John O’Sullivan (FG) said he and a number of his colleagues had received complaints from people shocked by demands received from the debt collection company.

“They [the council] didn’t notify customers this was happening. I don’t have a problem with us recovering debts but the council should have written to these people informing them if they did not pay up by a certain date, then a debt collection agency would be employed,” he said.

“There are businesspeople out there who are shuddering because of the letters and who cannot afford to pay what they owe in one lump sum.”

He said he will be seeking explanations on the matter from council management at a meeting on Monday.