Political litter louts are no joke
He referred to strange public notices in newspapers. No, he was not referring to the advertisements for the local and European elections which set the ratepayers back a few euro and in which two-thirds of the population have no interest. He was, in fact, writing about the gifts of education and colour that political postering brings to towns and cities.
I read this column on the bus from Dublin airport to the city centre last Thursday. Noel is right. The posters are wonderful as he says, they give us a profile of the candidates.
Profile has at least two meanings.
1. A short autobiographical note I noticed on the posters the details of these candidates. Their ability, experience, where they stand on the environment, education and health and other matters oh, no! There was nothing about this, silly me.
I have been taking Noel's 'politicianly correct' spoof too seriously and reading things that are not there.
2. A side view of the face. I looked at the grinning pictures. Not a profile in sight all full frontals.
Now I know that Noel was joking.
In north Dublin the poles were littered yes, littered with posters in breach of Section 19 of the Litter Act.
And at O'Connell Street, they stopped. How I missed them. With many wonderful monuments, the street cries out to be covered with political posters. And The Spire reaching to heaven what a location!
It could take hundreds of posters. And clearly Noel is right such interference is unconstitutional. The Litter Act is unconstitutional. He then goes on to attack officials as interfering busybodies.
How right he is why should they be allowed keep Dublin city (or Cork, or even Douglas) looking well and poster free? Let's have posters for everything on every pole and standard throughout the country. Look at the colour they would bring. Let everybody break the law and trespass on the property of the ESB, Eircom, etc.
As we came away from O'Connell Street I was so relieved to see that posters were again prolific in fact they seemed to increase and multiply. And the lord mayor of Dublin set a wonderful headline with his poster on the traffic lights at the junction of Church Lane and College Green. Hopefully, all traffic lights will soon be covered by these wonderful posters.
Then I read Noel's column again he is serious. The political parties have no right to put these posters up we have turned a blind eye to these breaches of the Litter Act for long enough.
It is time to stop.
As a barrister, I would expect Noel to quote the section of the act in full. Sub-section (7) says: "A prosecution shall not be brought... if the poster relates to an election."
This is totally different to what he implies. A candidate who puts up posters on poles, etc., is breaking the law, but he cannot be prosecuted.
As a sitting councillor and candidate remarked to me: "What is the point so?" What indeed?
But with good opinion columns written by people in Fianna Fáil (whose general secretary has written to our committee to say that FF will refrain from postering), we can expect the littering to go on and the dreadfully poor example to be followed.
John FitzGerald,
Honorary Secretary,
Douglas Tidy Towns Committee,
Douglas,
Cork.
