A plan to increase bin charges by 65 per cent to €330 a year in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area is expected to generate heated debate when councillors meet this evening.
In a pre-meeting briefing to councillors, Mr Derek Brady, county manager, warned that the council faced "stark" choices.
"In the preparation of the draft budget, many worthwhile expenditure items have been deleted, requests for additional staff to cope with ever-increasing demands have been rejected, and all possible sources of income have been increased," he wrote.
"And still we have a serious problem which must be addressed by either increasing the commercial rate, applying a realistic charge for waste on domestic householders or by radical cuts in services."
Mr Brady said the preparation of this year's budget had been "more difficult than ever" .
"Increased costs in relation to waste disposal, recycling, landfill tax, sewage treatment and water production are a serious burden. Increased costs due to benchmarking, insurance, VAT and so on also apply," he wrote.
He said the provisions made in the budget were "the minimum necessary to provide for our full range of functions".
The chairman of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Mr Donal Marren, has warned of the "dire financial situation" faced by the local authority and has called for an urgent meeting with the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen.
He said the system would collapse within three years unless a method of financing local authorities was addressed immediately.
The Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area has a low commercial base and so only derives 40 per cent of its income from commercial rates, compared with 60 to 80 per cent in some other local authorities.
Mr Marren said that although all local authorities had financial problems, "the situation in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown is particularly acute and is in need of urgent and immediate assistance".
Mr Marren has called on the Minister to make some of the surplus in the public finances available to the council.
"It is unjust, unfair and unreasonable for the Government to ask the local authority to carry out certain tasks and to deny them the financial resources to do the work," he said.
The book of estimates will also be discussed next Monday and Tuesday, with a vote expected then.
Some councillors have already expressed their intention to vote against the 2003 budget.
