Council is owed €7.2m in unpaid rubbish charges

On January 16, 2012, the council officially transferred its commercial and domestic waste collection business to Greyhound, and at the time €9.1m was owed in unpaid rubbish collection fees.

The council invoiced for a further amount of €4.5m in May of that year covering the last three months of 2011.

Greyhound managed to recoup €1.85m of the €4.5m but only €228,000 for May 2012 to May 2013.

In May last year, a debt management firm took over the collection of unpaid fees.

The council says that since then, debt collection firm Payaway has collected €520,000 of the millions of euro owed.

In the deal with the council, Greyhound and Payaway were paid on a commission basis for collecting the arrears.

However, the council said "there is currently €7.2m approximately owing to the council".

When the Herald asked Greyhound how the millions of euro in debt were to be recouped, a spokesman said it was an issue for the council.

pursued

"Payaway are dealing directly with DCC on this matter," the spokesman said.

However, the council was not in a position to respond to similar queries by the time of going to print.

In a document seen by this newspaper, the council said: "Payaway submitted a proposal to GRR and DCC setting out a methodology for collecting the outstanding amounts and this was accepted by both parties."

It is not understood what methods will now be employed to collect the unpaid bin fees dating back several years.

The Herald revealed last May that a 90-year-old Dublin woman was aggressively pursued over an outstanding bin charge debt of €14.

The elderly woman was threatened with a court hearing and having her name published in debtors' list Stubbs Gazette by an agency acting on behalf of DCC if she did not pay.

jfegan@herald.ie