Dublin City councillors have voted to accept a budget for next year that will see a 23 per cent rise in bin charges from January.
Some 25 councillors voted to accept the Council's estimates for the 2004 budget and 24 councillors voted against. The vote came at the end of a heated three-hour meeting at city hall where Fine Gael, Labour, the Green Party, Sinn Féin and Independents expressed reservations about the amount of funding they had been given.
Labour councillor Mr Kevin Humphreys condemned the budget and said the proposal to increase bin charges by 23 per cent was totally unacceptable. The Green Party warned it would vote against the budget unless serious deficiencies in the city's waste-management service were addressed.
After the meeting was briefly adjourned, however, the Green Party agreed to vote, along with Fianna Fáil, for the budget. It includes a package of new waste charges, with charges for a 240-litre bin increasing to €195 and for a 140-litre bin to €110 a year.