Galway city council bins; oh please take them away

Madame Razz

I am no longer a customer of theirs, have not been for a long time, yet I still have their bins. I ring them every week to ask them to come and collect the bins, they promise me every week that they will come and collect them and take them away, and they never do. This has been going on for quite a while now, and I'm a bit sick of it.

Has anybody else had this problem?? And how did you go about dealing with it. And what exactly do I have to do to get them to remove the fecking things??

dilallio

I had the same problem a few years ago.

Found the only way to get them removed was to email my local councillor.

It's an awful waste of resources when you have to get your councillor to deal with stuff like this.

SeanPuddin

They are the most incompetent office I have ever dealt with. Ask for the manager next time, he is a nice guy and should be able to get you sorted. Can't remember his name sorry.

snubbleste

When we switched to another supplier, they came round to our house and removed them from our back garden when there was nobody at home.
Don't go to a councillor, go to the Director of Services for whatever covers bins.

Sponge Bob

Send them an INVOICE for storage costs at say €100 a year. You would be surprised how fast they act when you bill them for a change

biko

They took them in a week after I switched to citybin.
I had to send them some confirmation from citybin first so they knew I would be covered for recycling/rubbish collection.

KittyeeTrix

You should've set them on fire during Rag Week and blamed the students...:D (only joking,, of course)

pleasant Co.

Send them a written request (registered post) outlining when you'd like them to be taken away, give them a reasonable time frame ie. 2 weeks, inform them in the letter that you will dispose of them yourself once the time frame has lapsed.

Make sure you send it by registered post, that way they can't claim they never got your letter.

I'm sure that'll hurry them up anyway

biko

Bring them into the council reception and leave them there, have the receptionist sign for delivery

Karona

We are having the same problem with them, bins are still her almost 2 months now after contacting them, its a pain in the arse

Dave Joyce

Maybe you guys are not aware that there has been an employee embargo on the City Council for the last number of years so we are incredibly short staffed in the Envirnoment section and we no longer get temporary staff to cover holidays. Added to that is the amount of guys who have retired in the last 18 months alone, along with the fact that at the moment we are down another 3 workers, maybe you get an idea of what we are up against.

Just a final, not totally unrelated point is that if, the admittedly not perfect service, is privatised, just WATCH what the prices of collection will soar to and if you doubt what I say, ask anyone in any part of the country that lost the local authority collection to private concerns!

ErnieBert

I had the same problem 4 years ago.

After about 16 months, I got a bill from the City Council requesting urgent payment. I contacted City Bin who provided me with a letter confirming that they had been providing me with a refuse collection service since a particular date. Then, the Council collected my bins.

One year later, i received a registered letter threatening legal action for non payment. I phoned the Council again. They claimed that I still had the bins.

A few months later, I got a solicitor's letter. I wrote back with copies of all of the correspondence (letters and emails). I sent the same file to the City Council. I followed this up with a phone call. I asked for a letter to confirm that the matter was closed. Two days later, I got the letter.

Case closed.

I hope.

Madame Razz

They are aware that there is an alternate provider at the address, and have been aware of this for a few months now; they just don't seem to be inclined to collect their property. Fair enough if they are understaffed, but it still should not take this long to have the bins collected. Their bins are completely in the way and I'm sick of ringing them about it:mad:

yeehaw

Dave Joyce wrote: »

Maybe you guys are not aware that there has been an employee embargo on the City Council for the last number of years so we are incredibly short staffed in the Envirnoment section and we no longer get temporary staff to cover holidays. Added to that is the amount of guys who have retired in the last 18 months alone, along with the fact that at the moment we are down another 3 workers, maybe you get an idea of what we are up against.

Just a final, not totally unrelated point is that if, the admittedly not perfect service, is privatised, just WATCH what the prices of collection will soar to and if you doubt what I say, ask anyone in any part of the country that lost the local authority collection to private concerns!

Employee embargo to combat overstaffing.
How many day's holidays do you get? Proper management shares workloads and manages staff holiday so that hiring temps is unnecessary.
Why are you down 3 workers?

I hope my tax dollars are not paying for you to post from work.

holly8

yeehaw wrote: »

Employee embargo to combat overstaffing.
How many day's holidays do you get? Proper management shares workloads and manages staff holiday so that hiring temps is unnecessary.
Why are you down 3 workers?

I hope my tax dollars are not paying for you to post from work.

he posted at 17:49. and i pay my taxes in euros

Zzippy

yeehaw wrote: »

Employee embargo to combat overstaffing.
How many day's holidays do you get? Proper management shares workloads and manages staff holiday so that hiring temps is unnecessary.
Why are you down 3 workers?

I hope my tax dollars are not paying for you to post from work.

The embargo on recruitment is a blanket embargo across the public sector. Yes some departments/agencies are overstaffed, but some are severely understaffed now due to non-replacement of staff leaving.

Anyway, back on topic. I second the idea of sending them a bill for storage!

dafunk

yeehaw wrote: »

Employee embargo to combat overstaffing.
How many day's holidays do you get? Proper management shares workloads and manages staff holiday so that hiring temps is unnecessary.
Why are you down 3 workers?

I hope my tax dollars are not paying for you to post from work.

Are you serious? Have you not read a newspaper or heard the news over the last year.

There is an embargo on hiring staff which means that the jobs that were being done by people who have retired or are on maternity are now getting covered by other staff who are still working their own hours aswell.

I get 50 days holidays a year. I work at least 70 hours a week. If this was spread over the 49 weeks that most people work it would be the equivanlent of a 60 hour week.

The public service workers are not the ones to blame, the government is.

OP. Why not leave a note on the bins for the guys picking up the rubbish asking them to take them away?

snubbleste

Employees are not supposed to exceed an annual average of 48 hours per week..not to include annual leave, sick leave or parental leave.

Dave Joyce

Employee embargo to combat overstaffing.

Well it's rather obvious you can write but CAN YOU READ or perhaps its an attention problem you have there??

How many day's holidays do you get?

We are entitled to 23 days I think but you obviously believe what you see/hear in the media and think we ALL have what the Engineers etc get:rolleyes: Please bear in mind that while we do get paid to work ALL bank holidays WE DO NOT get days in lieu for that!

Proper management shares workloads and manages staff holiday so that hiring temps is unnecessary.

Ha ha ha ha!!! Who do you think is going to share OUR lovely job. Some of my colleagues have OVER 150 hours of holidays to take FROM LAST YEAR the situation is so bad!!!

I hope my tax dollars are not paying for you to post from work.

Oh wow, I suppose you're of the opinion YOU'RE paying my wages too:rolleyes::rolleyes: You'ed be a great person to work for:rolleyes:

Madame Razz

Why has a thread about bins become an 'us against them' war between private workers and civil servants

Sponge Bob

Dave Joyce wrote: »

We are entitled to 23 days I think but you obviously believe what you see/hear in the media and think we ALL have what the Engineers etc get:rolleyes:

Tut Tut Tut , what happened to the simple friendly boards.ie style of post where you ask Madame to PM you and you get your employers bins taken away and then she thanks you for doing so.

I mean really :cool:

Madame Razz

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Tut Tut Tut , what happened to the simple friendly boards.ie style of post where you ask Madame to PM you and you get your employers bins taken away and then she thanks you for doing so.

I mean really :cool:

Dave Joyce

Why has a thread about bins become an 'us against them' war between private workers and civil servants

Well I suppose we're a bit sensitive at the moment:o what with Joe Duffy et al constantly saying we're on an average of €50K per annum (if fuking only!!)
and that we get 40something days leave a year yadda yadda yadda

what happened to the simple friendly boards.ie style of post where you ask Madame to PM you and you get your employers bins taken away and then she thanks you for doing so.

Well, if I put in a word the feckers would probably leave them there for good:p. There is a serious GULF in communication between City Hall staff and "Outdoor" staff, besides which we are paid from the shoulders down and aren't thought to have the brains/manners to engage the public....SERIOUSLY!

yeehaw

The public sector is a joke, staffed by overpaid underworked wasters who wouldn't survive a week in the private sector. These people all benefited from the benchmarking process which to this day remains the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the people of Ireland.

'I work 70 hours a week'...boo fking hoo... quit your job if you don't like it. 50 days off a year? That's obnoxious.

Mrs OBumble

yeehaw wrote: »

The public sector is a joke, staffed by overpaid underworked wasters who wouldn't survive a week in the private sector. These people all benefited from the benchmarking process which to this day remains the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the people of Ireland.

Umm, excuse me: we are talking about the outdoor workers of Galway City Council, the folks who take away your rubbish, and clean the streets of the piss, s-h-i-t, and broken glass that so many real wasters leave lying about every night.

Whatever else these folks are, they are are NOT under worked or overpaid.

On a more general note, I've spent the last two years temping in Galway city. I've had one three month role with a govt department, and other roles with a variety of private sector and voluntary agencies.

The voluntary-sector role was by far the hardest, and most demanding in terms of workload. Many of the staff there have worked in councils in the past, or most probably will do so in future. I had very little time to slack off, simply because the phone kept ringing.

The govt-agency one was a pretty close second: no phone calls, but a volume of work that simply needed to be done, and a clear communications that there was always more work to be done. It was the only place that actively prevented me from using the internet for anything that was not work, and made it clear that they would fire me if I even tried.

The private sector commercial businesses were the easiest work, with most opportunities to slack off and do non-work stuff during work time.