Daly comments on bin charges rejected

Forty eight hours after her release from jail Cllr Clare Daly has sparked a controversy by disputing figures produced by the county councils for the number of people paying waste charges.

Ms Daly told ireland.comthat "while we [the anti-bin tax campaign] accept the jump in compliance - this vindicates our position, people have been intimidated".

She disputed data released by Fingal County Council today stating that between 90 to 95 per cent of the 65,000 households in the region have either paid their bin charges or received a waiver. Thirteen per cent of households received a wavier.

"We dispute these figures and we will be using FoI requests and other means to carry out a revision". Ms Daly said she had been able to "pick 15 different holes" in previous information given by the county manager at a Fingal County Council meeting in September.

"In the last council meeting, based on an explanation of the figures, there were inaccuracies".Asked how councils would misrepresent compliance figures, Ms Daly replied "the usual ways. The wavier situation would be misrepresented. In other councils, more so than Fingal, they take part-payment, of like €5 and call that compliance."

She said any county manager who thought that due to the recent rise in compliance meant that they had won the argument was mistaken.

Ms Daly's claims were strongly rejected by Fingal County Council.

A spokesperson said €568,000 was collected in September. Compliance rates had sharply increased since the council imposed its non-collection policy and the council expected to collect approximately €4.5 million this year. If this rate of compliance was continued over a full year the council said approximately €7 million would be generated.

Dublin City Council today reported an 81 per cent compliance rate while South Dublin Council said it has 80 per cent. An up to date figure was not available from Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council this afternoon.

Speaking about her jailing Ms Daly said the decision by councils in the Dublin area to seek injunctions against protesters who obstruct domestic waste collection was a blow to the right of people to hold "effective" protests.

"What's at the heart of this is the right to effective protest. Essentially what the councils were saying by bringing us to court is that 'yes, you can have a campaign, have a few placards give out a few leaflets as long as your campaign has no effect'."

Restating her determination to continue with the campaign she blamed the Government for the non-collection of bins to thousands of people who had paid their waste charges.

"If Cullen was interested in cutting down the amount of waste going to landfill from households he could bring in legislation tomorrow outlawing packaging, putting in bylaws stating it is illegal to put recyclable material into landfill. None of those have been done".