Councillors turn blind eye to illegal signs

RECENTLY I emailed councillors to encourage them to put pressure on city and county managers to enforce the litter laws as far as illegal advertising signs erected by businesses are concerned.

These have a negative impact on our tourist industry. They also have implications for road safety and degrade our environment. Only a small minority of businesses engage in this type of activity, but they gain an unfair competitive advantage over the majority of businesses which respect the law.

There has been a significant increase in the volume of illegal signs erected in the past 12 months. This can be attributed to the lack of enforcement. The response I received from the politicians was not encouraging and I presume this issue is not seen as a vote-winner. So I laughed at the way Sinn Féin broke the litter laws by erecting a large number of signs along a major Cork city thoroughfare over the Easter weekend. Clearly, the intention was to promote its Euroelections candidate. Had the three main parties shown more interest in enforcing the litter laws, SF probably would not have tried this stunt. The moral is “as you sow, so shall you reap”.