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Fine Gael TD for Dublin West, Leo Varadkar, has slammed Fingal County Council for deciding to end the practice of giving free bin tags to low-income families and social welfare recipients.  At the moment, eleven thousand households in Fingal qualify for a waiver from bin charges.  This means that they do not have to pay the annual charge of €110 and that they get a number of bin tags free every year depending on the size of their household.  Under plans announced by the County Manager, these households will now have to buy bin tags.  They will still be exempt from having to pay the annual charge.  The change will come into effect from January 1st, 2010.

‘I am very angry at the County Manager’s decision to take the free bin tags away from the poor and the old.  With cuts in social welfare to come in the budget, the poor and old are going to be hit with a double-whammy from the government and council over Christmas and the New Year.  The council is controlled by Labour and the Socialist Party, I do not want to see them pointing the fingers at Fianna Fail and the Greens in central government.  In the local elections, they promised that this would not happen.  They control the council and are responsible for adopting the council’s annual budget, it is their job now to come with alternative savings in the council’s budget to make sure that this does not happen’