Horse manure and litter problems continue to plague tourist haven

KILLARNEY may be moving closer to the top prize in the Tidy Towns competition, but littering and horse manure continue to be problems in the tourist mecca.

As well as winning the award for being Ireland’s tidiest large town, Killarney was only one mark short of scooping the overall award in the competition this year.

An all-out effort is already under way to go a few marks better and pull off the big prize next year.

Killarney also won a gold medal in the European Entente Florale competition.

But, while members of the Killarney Town Council were in self-congratulatory mood at Monday night’s meeting, Cllr Michael Gleeson called for a “renewed and reinforced” commitment to tackle littering.

“It’s disappointing that littering is still a problem,” he said.

Also, while congratulating the council and all concerned with the Tidy Towns performance, Killarney Soroptimists (an organisation for women in business and managerial positions) expressed concern about the problem of horse manure on the streets of the town and in walkways in Killarney National Park.

Despite strong statements and legal threats on the manure issue in the past, the town council has failed to resolve the problem.

It is understood the local soroptimists are to write to Environment Minister John Gormley asking him to address the manure problem as a matter of urgency.

“It’s just not good enough to have manure on the streets of Ireland’s leading tourist town in this day and age,” said a soroptimists’ spokesperson yesterday.

“Not only is this a tourism issue, it’s also a major health and safety issue for people.”

Killarney jarveys have resisted all efforts by the local council to install equine sanitary devices (also called horse nappies) to their vehicles. Such devices are commonly used in other parts of the world.

The council has been at loggerheads with the jarveys for several years and last year threatened legal action to stop jaunting cars from using the streets if they did not fit the sanitary devices.

However, the jarveys claim such devices are not suitable and could result in horses bolting, with obvious risks for both jarveys and tourists.