DUBLIN CITY COUNCIL’s chief executive has come under fire for language he used in relation to people who collect bottles from bins in the capital to make some money.

In an interview with the Irish Independent, Richard Shakespeare said the introduction of the ReTurn deposit return scheme for cans and bottles has led to “bin scavenging” in the city.

Shakespeare compared people who collect bottles with seagulls, saying “this is two-legged scavenging as opposed to winged scavenging”. He also accused people of leaving city centre streets “like a bomb site” after searching through bins.

He added that some of the people going through the bins “are very vulnerable people, some of them look very respectable people, but they’re obviously doing it for a reason”. 

Aubrey McCarthy, an independent Senator and founder of the Tiglin charity that provides social care services to marginalised people, said the language used by the Dublin City Council chief executive was “horrible” and “all wrong”.

McCarthy said people visit Tiglin’s city cenrre Lighthouse Café most evenings with bags of bottles they have collected. He said that for many marginalised people, this is the only way of “getting a few quid”.

These are people with complex needs, he said.  “With people who are marginalised who are already put down by society … to be labelled a scavenger on top of that is horrible.”

He suggested there may be a solution to be found in the way bins are designed, or with the introduction of separate bottle bins. A pilot scheme whereby compartments to hold containers are added to the exterior of bins is already in place – but usually there’s space for only a few recyclable bottles.

“Tackle the issue rather than tackle the people,” McCarthy said.

“Play the ball, not the person. The person has no voice because they are already marginalised.”

Janet Horner, a Green Party Dublin city councillor, said Shakespeare’s comments were “really disappointing”.

“We know that Dublin City Council has had serious issues with litter and dumping that preceded the introduction of the deposit return scheme by a long way,” Horner told RTÉ Radio 1′s Drivetime.

She added: “Blaming vulnerable people who are currently looking through bins is sort of choosing the lowest possible person to blame for the current state of Dublin streets.”

Asked on RTÉ’s Drivetime programme this evening about Horner’s comments, Shakespeare said that he was “characterising the law of unintended consequences” of the scheme.

He added that the situation was “sad” but that council was “broadly supportive” of the programme: “I think it’s the right thing to do and it shouldn’t be a case where our most vulnerable citizens need to go chasing bottles and cans out of bins.”

Shakespeare said in his interview with the Irish Independent that the deposit return scheme had added between €500,000 and €1m to the city’s cleaning costs.

Pictured in 2024: then Lord Mayor of Dubin James Geoghegan; then Minister of State Ossian Smyth; Cllr Janet Horner; Richard Shakespeare, Chief Executive Dublin City Council; and Ciaran Foley, CEO of Re-Turn at the launch of ‘Give Take Return’ pilot programme by Re-turn and Dublin City Council.

He told the Independent: “It breaks my heart on occasions on South Great George’s Street, and you can see them.”

“I’ll have gone over to the Mansion House, and the place will be spotless and the [cleaning crews] have just been through. You’ll come back an hour later and it’s like a bomb site. So, you step off a bus or out of a taxi and you’ve come in from the airport or whatever else, and you think, jeez, this place is filthy.

He said that “turf wars” had been breaking out and that street cleaning teams had noticed people claiming certain sets of bins as their own.

With reporting by Eoghan Dalton