Dublin City Council has said if waste collection was totally privatised the council could be left collecting only from those on waivers.
Assistant City Manager Seamus Lyons was responding to a recent High Court judgement that found the four local authorities had abused their dominant position by trying to control the market.
Mr Lyons said the councils had sought a variation to the waste management plan in 2008 to prevent private companies 'cherry picking'.
This policy would have meant that either the councils would collect the waste themselves, or they would award a contract for their market by public tender.
Mr Lyons said this was 'to prevent uncontrolled fracture of the market with any amount of operators on the streets any day of the week chasing customers' and allow competition for the market rather than within the market.
Councils feared that the private operators would go after 'good-paying customers' and not those on waivers, the city council has 40,000 households on this scheme.
Private operator Panda successfully argued in the High Court that the councils' attempt to regulate waste collection was anti-competitive.
But Mr Lyons said this judgement would not make any difference to waste collection now as the councils' plan had been under injunction since 2008 and private operators had succeeded in capturing market share, particularly in Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown and Fingal.
He said the High Court judge is due to deliver his formal judgement on 14 February next and the council will then have 21 days to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Mr Lyons said the councils had received legal advice before bringing in the policy and had fully expected to win the court case.
