Council and restaurants row over fat in Dublin's sewers

RESTAURANT OWNERS and Dublin City Council are at odds over a planned scheme to reduce the amount of fat discharged by food businesses into sewers.

Removal of grease from the sewerage system poses safety risks to local authority staff who have to physically enter the sewers to remove the blockages, the council said.

The council is seeking tenders to provide an inspection system to monitor the fats, oils and grease discharged into the sewers in Dublin city and county and the counties in the greater Dublin area.

However, the Restaurants Association of Ireland has asked the council not to go ahead with the contract, which would cost up to €3.5 million, and instead allow the industry to implement a self-regulation regime.

Dublin’s sewers are larger than those in the rest of the State and cannot be cleaned mechanically. Instead, council workers have to climb into the pipes to remove grease blockages which can lead to flooding.

A fats, oils and greases programme was introduced in the city council area in 2008 and has prevented more than 1,000 tonnes of fat from entering the sewers each year, the council said. Under the programme, food businesses must have a discharge licence which limits the amount of fat they can release. They must install grease traps to prevent fats and oils from going down the drain and ensure the fat collected is properly disposed of.

The licences issued between 2008 and 2010 cost from €590 to €1,630 a year, depending on the business. The council changed the system this year so that businesses complying with their licences and having the correct grease-trapping equipment pay less.

The council has received some €2.6 million in licence charges. The restaurants association said the extension of the scheme to other local authorities was a money-making exercise. “We had asked the council to have discussions in relation to self-regulation, which would be far more cost-effective, but instead they have gone out to tender without consulting anyone in the industry,” association chief executive Adrian Cummins said.

A self-monitoring system in which businesses had to regularly submit samples and could be subject to spot checks by the Food Safety Authority or the Health Service Executive would save money and relieve the regulatory burden, he added.

A spokesman for the council said it would not comment on discussions with a representative body but it had “reservations about the effectiveness of self-regulation in this issue”.