LMFM radio’s “Loosetalk” programme today (Friday) devoted much air time to the understandable public anger at the decision by the Panda private waste collection company to do away with their “Tag” system and consequently, by stealth, massively increase their bin collection charges.
Loosetalk’s presenter, Michael Reade, however, (deliberately or otherwise) avoided confronting the reason the general public have to pay these charges. Let me (again) remind you why the people of Drogheda are required to pay Bin Taxes. A majority of our local elected councillors back in 2000, inlluding the then Cllr. Fergus O’Dowd, now a TD, voted to introduce Bin Taxes in the town, effectively turning a vital public service into a market commodity. Fom then on it was open season with private waste collectors, including Panda, queing up to get a piece of the newly-created cash cow.
Even the local Labour Party’s Bin Taxes policy proved to be as phoney as Cllr Ged Nash’s contrived “Tommy Broughan” accent. Labour have repeatedly supported the Borough Council’s annual estimates, estimates that since 2000 contain absolutely no provision for a municipal public refuse collection in Drogheda. The nett. effect of this is that the town’s refuse collection remains firmly in the hands of privateers and leaves the general public exposed to their whims, including ever increasing bin charges as introduced, by stealth, by Panda this week.
The real culprits in this shameful saga are the local Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Labour and so-called “Independent” politicians who “did away” with Drogheda’s local authority bin collection and who, on an annual basis ever since, vote for estimates that keep bin taxes alive by leaving the service in private hands.
Neither I, the local Socialist Party, or indeed the general public will ever forget how these people refused point blank to support the Anti Bin Tax Campaign in Drogheda or indeed lift a finger of protest as members of the public and Socialist Party reprepresentatives were jailed for refusing to sell out our voters and communities in Dublin and elsewhere in the country on the Bin Tax issue.
I personally will not forget how certain local politicians colluded with a big name private waste collection company and senior local authority officials to pressure my then employer to suspend me from my work. Despite an unblemished and unbroken 32 year employment record at the time, I found myself suspended for six weeks, allegedly for “serious gross mis-conduct” i.e. involving myself in, and giving a platform to the pople’s Anti Bin Tax Campaign in the town. I remember well one local “clown” of a councillor threatening/warning me outside the Bank of Ireland premises in Laurence Street, just 36 hours prior to my suspension, to “give up your bin protest or lose that good job of yours”. I was, following a company-wide protest from my staff colleagues and an investigation, eventually reinstated at work.
Some 20 months later the councillor in question lost out in the 2004 local elections – what goes around really does (eventually) come around.
