Dublin City Council last night voted to accept its budget for 2004 by a margin of just one vote.
Some 25 councillors voted to accept the Council's estimates for the year ahead and 24 councillors voted against. The vote came at the end of a heated three-hour meeting at city hall where Fine Gael, Labour, the Green Party, Sinn Féin and Independents expressed reservations about the amount of funding which they had been given.
Labour councillor Mr Kevin Humphreys condemned the budget and said the proposal to increase bin charges by 23 per cent from January was totally unacceptable. The Green Party warned it would vote against the budget unless serious deficiencies in the city's waste management service were addressed.
After the meeting was briefly adjourned, however, the Green Party agreed to vote, along with Fianna Fáil, for the budget. It includes a package of new waste charges, with charges for a 240-litre bin increasing to €195 and for a 140 litre bin to €110 a year.