Tourist board’s ‘green image’ is a pile of rubbish

MUCH of the recent political debate and media focus regarding waste management has highlighted local opposition to the building of superdumps and waste incineration plants at various sites around Ireland.

As much as these issues are important, our political masters appear to have totally forgotten the country's most obvious and visible waste management problem the litter-filled linear dumps that are omnipresent in the streets and roads of our towns, cities and countryside.

I live near Killaloe, probably the most tourist-orientated inland waterway town in Ireland. I work in Limerick, the commercial capital of the mid-West, and a tourist gateway to southwest Ireland. The roads into Killaloe resemble linear dumps. There is hardly a five-metre stretch of roadside green margin on the Limerick to Ballina/Killaloe road that is not covered with litter and discarded household rubbish.