The Chief Executive of Belfast City Council has made an apology to the public and councillors over the local authority’s highly criticised bin collections during the Christmas period.
At the council’s recent meeting of its Strategic Policy and Resources Committee, Chief Executive John Walsh made the public statement in the face of a wave of anger after failures over Christmas led to a fifth of residential waste not being collected by the local authority. The failure came after the city council glass collection was suspended for months earlier in the year through the summer into autumn.
Mr Walsh, who was appointed to the top job last March, told the committee: “As Chief Executive I think it is important I issue a public apology, and an apology to all of you, in terms of what has occurred with the bin collection over the Christmas period. Obviously those standards did not meet what the public and our citizens are entitled to and what they expect of us.
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“Nor do those standards meet what we expect of ourselves. I just want to give you an undertaking that I will commit my own personal time to try and ensure that the service improves as best as it can, within the resources we have.
“And to make it better not just in the context of dealing with the collection of bins which fall on bank holidays, but also more generally in terms of just trying to improve the service for citizens. We will make creative solutions around problems that have arisen and continue to arise on a recurring basis - like the bin collection where there are parked vehicles etc etc.”
On Boxing Day the council apologised to residents for inconvenience caused by a lack of bin collection over the festive period, and blamed a shortage of drivers. Collections which normally take place on Tuesday were not emptied on December 27th, with residents told they would have to wait two weeks.
At the full council meeting in City Hall earlier this month, councillors said that the angry response from residents was “mortifying,” while council workers' morale was “at an all time low” from being “overworked and underpaid”.
At the council’s People and Communities Committee two weeks ago, officers told elected representatives that waste disposal was currently implementing a “recovery” plan following the collapse of services over the holiday period.
The council has agreed to the return of a Cleansing Task Force for the city, which was discontinued during the Covid pandemic. The committee also agreed for council site visits to streets facing consistent problems with missed collections. However councillors have continued to state that their constituents were reporting a failure to empty bins.
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