Report on "Meet & Greet" Bin men in Dundrum & Ballinteer

dublin | bin tax / household tax / water tax | news report Tuesday September 30, 2003 12:52 by Dundrum/Ballinteer Resident Campaign Hotline 087 2837989

Residents came out this Monday and Tuesday to ensure all bins were collected.

Both yesterday and today, residents in a number of housing estates in the Dundrum and Ballinteer area came out to greet the bin men and talk with them to ensure all bins were collected. The relationship between the residents and bin men was very friendly, as they realize the people are behind them and with privatisation looming, their jobs and job conditions are on the line.

Today (Tues 30th Sept) residents were out early this morning at 8:15am in Broadford where about 10 people were present to meet and greet the bin men. Then later in Hillview, about 18 people gathered to await the arrival of the bin men.

It was later discovered that the bin lorries were clearly instructed to avoid Hillview and collect in other areas first, so as to avoid the residents. Hillview is normally collected early in the morning.

It was decided that in future to have people scout the area first and to then to assemble where they are collecting. There is a role here for those people who would like to do something, but cannot as they have to go to work. They could phone or text in reports on the whereabouts of the bin lorries to either the campaign hotline or to any of the local people.

And yesterday there was a good turnout in Rosemount, Dundrum where about 30 people were present. In Colombanus 15 people gathered, while in Woodpark Ballinteer 7 people gathered and in Ludford there were 11.

The bin men told us that at the moment they had no instructions not to collect, but it may start in the next week or two.

The council intend to follow around with another lorry to take back the bins of those who have not paid. The council do not have a right to come onto your property so when this happens people should immediately pull the empty bins back into their gardens before the other truck comes along. If they could do this for their neighbours too, then this would be a great help.

The latest tactics by the government are now that they need the double tax to pay for the benchmarking in the civil service. This is just a cynical ploy to try and pit the considerable number of people in the civil service against the campaign.

Fingal CC have recently put adverts out on the air saying bin collection is almost fully resumed, that they are using the bin charges for recycling facilities and they are working with the community. How do they pack so many lies into one ad? They are clearly not working with the community, service has not resumed fully and the mistruth about recycling is an blatant attempt to use the considerable backing by the public for recycling as a means to divide the campaign.

All residents should be aware that waivers will disappear if and when the service is privatised and the pay-by-weight scheme will almost certainly be modified to have a basic flat charge possibly up to 300 or 400 euros with the pay-by-weight scheme on top of that. This has already happened elsewhere and in other countries.

Don't forget Protest at the Dail on Kildare St at 6:30pm this evening to "Scrap the BIN TAX" as the Dail resumes today.