Who Qualifies for a Waiver?

Table 3 at Appendix 5 of the Report gives an overview of the waste collection system in place in the local authorities surveyed, together with an overview of the qualifying criteria for a waiver of waste charges.

Criteria

The criteria used to decide which households qualify for a waiver are different in each local authority. The most common criterion used is the amount of total household income. Individual local authorities set different levels of income limits that are broadly based on rates of social welfare payments. The majority of local authorities surveyed which offer a waiver, do so regardless of the source of the household income, recognising that some people in employment have income levels so low as to impede their ability to pay waste charges. Three local authorities confine the grant of a waiver to households that are exempt from tax, one local authority offers a waiver only to households whose sole source of income is from means-tested social welfare payments, and one local authority grants a waiver only to a person or a couple over 65 years of age and living alone. (Appendix 5)    

Use of discretion

Of the 16 local authorities surveyed that provided a waiver scheme for their customers in 2006, 15 provide for the use of discretion in hardship cases on an ad hoc evaluation basis. One local authority, however, (Waterford County Council) operates within the strict qualifying criteria set out in its scheme i.e. households in receipt of means-tested social welfare payments, and the scheme specifically states that any applicant who does not fall into the listed income categories will not qualify.