Bin waivers…

This is a blatantly obvious point really, but the news that Dublin City Council is to modify the rules as regards waivers on bin collection will not be a surprise to many of us. The reasoning on the Council’s part is that they believe that some households with waivers had an income of up to and over €1,000 per week depending on the number of occupants dependent on welfare. So, DCC now is imposing an income limit of €500 which they claim ‘would still qualify a household of two pensioners.’

Be that as it may, but to me it seems that the situation here demonstrates the lack of efficiency of attempting to monetise – at least in terms of its impact on people, not in the sense that there are no costs involved – public services such as bin collection.

The reality is that paradoxical effects will be thrown up if it is shifted to pay per individual/household or whatever, whereas if the costs are borne by general taxation many of these can be avoided.

Moreover, and this is even more central, it avoids the current outcome where due to cost pressures (this is driven by a ‘jump’ in claimants in the last year from a previous average of c. 39,000 to – er – 41,000, which in a recessionary situation doesn’t frankly seem that bad) DCC seeks to narrow the scope for waivers.

Sure, there’s the idea that charging may modify behaviour, though I tend to wonder about that in implementation. Isn’t it equally likely that those who can afford to won’t see any modification and those who can’t may attempt to evade it entirely.

But the flight from universalism seems to me to almost inevitably lead to these outcomes.