Councillors condemn blight of littering and illegal dumping in Tipperary's countryside

Tipperary County Council’s head of environmental services described the level of littering in the county’s countryside this spring as the “worst” he has seen after listening to a succession of councillors’ complaints about the problem at the authority’s March meeting.

Eamon Lonergan, the Council’s Director of Environment & Climate Action Services, said it was very disheartening to see what is happening in the countryside beyond the speed limits of towns and villages. “It’s a blight on our countryside at the moment,” he declared.

He said the council had road engineers spending time on cleaning up litter when they should be working on roads and improving drainage.

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Mr Lonergan confirmed the council will be using CCTV and drone technology in certain cases in blackspot areas to tackle illegal dumping. An issue with its use last year has been resolved. The council is also prosecuting illegal dumping cases in the courts.

He was responding to Fianna Fáil Cllr Sean Ryan, who asked at the meeting in Clonmel if the council was using this technology to stop illegal dumping and littering.

The Littleton councillor was one of many councillors who highlighted the scourge of littering and illegal dumping of refuse in their communities.

He said the council’s environmental officers were “worn out” collecting bags of illegally dumped rubbish.

Fine Gael Cllr Marie Murphy reported that the children of St Mary’s National School, Clogheen collected approximately 15 bags of rubbish in a litter pick they carried out earlier this month while 42 bags of rubbish were collected in The Vee area by volunteers. “It’s a crazy amount of stuff and the amount of rubbish that is dumped over walls is horrendous.”

She thanked the council for providing litter pickers and refuse bags to volunteers and called for more of this equipment for community groups.

Carrick-on-Suir MD Cathaoirleach Cllr David Dunne suggested takeaway restaurants should be required to put the car registration numbers of purchasers of their food on the packaging so they can be traced back to the owner if it’s discarded on the roadside.

Overall, he was in despair over the extent of littering and illegal dumping. He said he didn’t know what more the council could do and didn’t believe there was an answer to the problem.

Clonmel Fine Gael Cllr John Fitzgerald said towns and villages where a Tidy Towns group operates were like “oases” but the approach roads to communities and the countryside were basically being used as a landfill.

Indeed, the countryside has become so unsightly that he was now nearly afraid to go for a walk on a country road due to the amount of rubbish discarded there.

He wondered could an initiative be put in place where landowners could be rewarded for managing the clean up of illegal dumping of rubbish by others on their property.

The council's environment section had done a lot to prevent and tackle littering and illegal dumping but there was a lot more to be done, he added .

Fine Gael Cllr Mark Fitzgerald from Cloneen said the key to tackling the “epidemic” of littering was education starting with campaigns in the schools. He described how an annual spring clean in his community covered every kilometre of the parish last year. It was very successful, getting support from local community organisations like the GAA.

Mr Lonergan responded that the council has developed a campaign to tackle littering and it will go to public consultation later this year.

He said the council needed to be “more hard hitting” in the message it got out to the public about littering and illegal dumping.

And he pointed out that more than 200 registered groups were doing spring clean ups this year. “Tidy Towns groups are doing their best so to see what is happening outside of the speed limit in communities is very disheartening.”

Mr Lonergan stressed the council was “very keen” to tackle the problem and promised to supply whatever litter picking equipment was needed to community groups.