Green candidate refuses to bow as posters are slashed

AN ELECTION candidate has vowed to continue his campaign despite a sinister and coordinated string of attacks on his election posters.

Dozens of posters for Green Party candidate in the Cork south-west ward, Mick Murphy, were cut to shreds in recent days.

One of the destroyed posters was located on a pole outside his home.

The attacks over the weekend followed two previous attacks on his election material.

In the first incident, handwritten stickers bearing the words “Shut your mouth” were placed across the posters. Mr Murphy removed the stickers.

In the following incident, cable ties were cut and dozens of posters were dumped on the ground. Mr Murphy replaced those posters too.

But over the weekend, he discovered that dozens of the replaced posters had been slashed in half, apparently with a knife.

Of the 78 posters he had put up, just 17 remain. Most of those are located above step-ladder height, or in prominent locations where it would be difficult to do damage without being seen.

Green Party Senator Dan Boyle’s posters in the south west ward were also vandalised with vulgar stickers.

On the recommendation of Green Party headquarters, Mr Murphy reported the incident to gardaí on Saturday.

Mr Murphy said he is “100% confident” that the attacks have nothing to do with any other candidates in the area. “This was a coordinated and determined effort to get these off the poles,” he said.

“While I realise that many candidates have had some of their election posters vandalised over the past weeks I feel that my posters have been subject to a more sinister type of vandalism. This is not of huge significance to me; vandals may be able to sneak around under the cover of darkness to cut my posters to shreds; they cannot, however, cut the message I am delivering on the doorsteps which must be causing them no end of grief.”

Mr Murphy is the party’s spokesperson on community development. He is a co-founder of Communities for Sustainable Development, a lobby group which was formed several years ago following a huge increase in the development of three, four and five-storey student apartment complexes in the western suburbs.

Meanwhile, the Environment Minister has announced €694,400 in funding for Cork County Council from the Environment Fund for the operation of bring banks and civic amenity sites.

“I hope the council will use this increased funding to remove the €3 gate fee for the civic amenity sites which they imposed earlier this year,” Green Cllr in Passage West, Dominick Donnelly said.