‘Shocking’ number of Tipperary homes have no regular bin collection, councillor claims
Homes where bins are overflowing with rubbish are becoming an increasing problem in parts of Tipperary, according to a local councillor.
At the September meeting of the Carrick-on-Suir Municipal District, Sinn Féin Councillor David Dunne asked representatives of the council’s environment section if the local authority were taking action on homes with no bin service, saying the situation was “shocking”.
“We’re meant to be visiting all the houses to see if they’ve got bins, but I’m getting numerous complaints,” he said. “I was just out recently, I went to over 500 houses with leaflets and a number of houses I have come across that have bins that are not being collected.
“There are bins that are overflowing with rubbish, and I thought we were going to get to a situation where this would not be allowed to happen again, that we would know exactly where people are dumping their rubbish.
“It seems to be getting a lot worse, and what I think is happening is that we go to a house that doesn’t have bins, they go and get a bin from a bin provider, they pay the first month and then they don’t pay again,” Cllr Dunne said.
Cllr Dunne said the issue was not confined to council estates, with privately owned and rented homes also affected.
“It’s shocking,” he said. “To see houses that people have pride and joy in the way they look after it and maintain the grass and to see the way some of the houses are being left with rubbish strewn everywhere.
“I passed a house where the bins were actually in a trailer, which would tell me that those bins — full of rubbish — were being brought somewhere else to be dumped,” the Sinn Féin councillor said.
In response, a representative from the council’s environment section said that the local authority engage with bin companies, who will tell them if people have active accounts for bin collection or not.
“We can phone up bin companies and give them a name and an account number and they’re able to confirm that yes, a person has a bin collection service,” the meeting was told.
“They don’t tell us the name of the property owner, but if we can tell them the property owner’s name and the account number, they can confirm if they have bins or not,” they said.