Waste Waiver Schemes

Value of waivers

All local authorities surveyed who provide a waste collection service in their area offer a reduction of the amount of the waste charges to low-income households who qualify under their waste waiver schemes. There are a wide variety of schemes with different qualifying criteria and different types and amounts of reductions. Some local authorities offer a full or partial waiver of the fixed annual charge only, while others offer a waiver of the pay-by-use portion of the charge, in the form of free tags or a free weight allowance and some schemes provide an element of both types of relief.  In 2006, the average annual value of a waiver ranged from €40 in Wexford County to €357 in Galway City.

Waivers granted in 2006

Details of the waivers granted in 2006 by the local authorities surveyed are contained in Table 2 at Appendix 3 of this report.

Cost of providing a waiver scheme

The provision of a waiver scheme has significant cost implications for local authorities. As can be seen in Table 2 (Appendix 3) the cost of implementing a waiver scheme ranges from €30,000 in Wexford County to €7.8 million in Dublin City. Most local authorities surveyed are using income allocated to other services to subsidise the scheme. Only three authorities, (Cork County, Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown and Waterford County), recover the cost of waivers by levying sufficient charges on other users of the waste collection service.

Private operators provide no relief by way of a waiver of charges to low-income households. As part of the survey, I asked local authorities for their views on whether, in these circumstances, the local authority should provide a waiver to customers of the private collector in the area. None of the respondents saw this as a realistic proposition with the exception of Limerick County, which from 2007 provides a partial waiver to customers of the private collectors, and Limerick City, which arranges collection by a private contractor for a limited number of low-income households.

The report of the Combat Poverty Agency “ Implementing a Waiver Scheme – Guidelines for Local Authorities – 2005”, made reference to a hardship scheme operated by Monaghan County Council (not one of the authorities included in our survey). Monaghan County Council, whose waste collection service has been privatised for a number of years, has established a Hardship Fund with a small annual budget to provide relief for those most in need.  My Office contacted the Council in the context of this survey and was advised that a sum of €20,000 was set aside for this fund in 2006 and again in 2007. Details of this scheme are at Appendix 4.

The difficulties identified by local authorities in providing a waiver to private operators’ customers included the following:

• Would pose administrative problems for the local authority;
• Would place an unsustainable financial burden on the local authority;
• Would result in local authority customers subsidising the users of the private service;
• Would increase the cost of the local authority service thereby weakening its market competitiveness;
• Could force the local authority out of the market, create a monopoly, and would be likely to result in spiralling charges.

The responses of the local authorities surveyed are described in more detail at Chapter 10. My comments on their responses are at Chapter 11.