Meath County Council has cut its twice weekly collection of commercial refuse down to once a week, and local businesses are not in the least bit pleased.
Retailers, publicans and businesses in the County Meath all pay rates to the local authority which collects their rubbish. However, casual traders at the town's weekly market on Fair Green who are not obliged to pay rates leave their waste left behind, which is collected the following day by the Council.
Frustrated at the cutbacks in their commercial waste collection service, a number of rate-paying retailers in Navan protested by dumping their uncollected rubbish at the Fair Green last Friday night, and letters threatening legal action from Meath County Council and Navan Urban District Council have subsequently been received by many businesses.
Shopkeeper John Gavin describes the situation as ironic, but as RTÉ News discovered, the casual traders are not doing anything illegal, as
Ancient market charters predating the Irish State...guarantee free trading on Navan's Fair Green.
Publican Patrick Fitzsimons says it is unfair that ratepayers in Navan’s Urban District area are subsidising free bin collections for their competitors, and he believes that the legal letters issued by the local authority
Certainly looked as if it was a reminder to us ratepayers that we may not use that facility.
When contacted for a statement, a spokesman for Meath County Council said that all towns in the county now only have one commercial refuse collection per week.
The issue is complicated further by the fact that there is no statutory obligation for the Council to collect trade refuse, merely to provide dumping facilities. The outcome for Navan’s rate-paying retailers remains to be seen.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 22 September 1980.
