Staff at the Local Government Management Agency – the group charged with collecting the household charge – have received death threats, according to its CEO Paul McSweeney.
He revealed to The Irish Examiner that he and staff had been threatened and been sent hate mail, while one senior member of staff was also sent a shotgun cartridge.
Despite this Mr McSweeney said that the LGMA would continue to send the reminder letters out requesting the €100 payment.
He revealed how gardaí are investigating who was behind the posting of ammunition to the LGMA.
"We had the pleasure of having a shotgun cartridge sent in the post which I reported to the gardaí. But this won’t deter us from the work that we have to do," he said.
Gardaí from Kevin St station have investigated the sinister package but no suspects were identified.
"Dealing with the population at large, there’s always going to be some extreme people. The gardaí took it [the cartridge] away. There were no fingerprints or anything on it," he said.
Mr McSweeney said his staff had received threats and abuse and he had received hate mail in the post and online.
"Our staff in the call centre, a lot of them took verbal abuse and we had to tell them you don’t have to take that. I personally have received hate mail. They’re not obviously going to identify themselves as being part of the campaign. I received hate mail, I received it online, I received it on Facebook."
To date, 61% of property owners have registered for the charge.
