Tipperary councillors call out dog fouling and roadside rubbish as big local litter issues

The recent Nenagh Municipal District meeting, attended by representatives from the Environment & Climate Action department of Tipperary County Council, saw members raise their concerns for local litter and dog fouling issues.

Cllr Fiona Bonfield kicked off the conversation by complimenting the good work being done by the dog and litter warden in the area but added that there were areas in the district that need to be addressed.

Cllr Joe Hannigan took the opportunity to discuss the problem of fast food litter being dumped on local roads: “Take the Nenagh to Puckane road for example, you see litter thrown onto the roadside there where people have obviously gone to one of the fast food establishments in town, eaten their food on the way home and then when they’re finished with it just thrown it out the window. Now, it’s obviously the minority that are doing this but is there something that we can do to deter people from doing this? Could we ask the local fast food outlets to maybe do a campaign where they could ask people to not throw their rubbish onto the road?”

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Cllr Seamus Morris agreed with Joe and added: “The constant problem is dog fouling. It might not seem like much of an issue for most of us but anyone with a buggy or in a wheelchair that runs over it has much more of a problem. People come to us all the time and they look at it in a reasonable way and ask can you not do something about it but it’s only certain individuals doing it and it’s hard to catch them directly.

“Maybe the issue is we haven’t got enough dog bins, maybe we could review where we have dog bins in the area and look to add more?”

Cllr Michael O’Meara told the meeting that a serious issue in his own area was the increase in dead deer on the roadside: “I’ve had two incidences of people coming to me about dead deer on the roadside recently, what is the procedure in terms of getting rid of those and do they get tested for tuberculosis?”

Cllr Pamela Quirke O’Meara took the conversation to her area of the district and said: “I’ve had a number of reports recently about forestry works being carried out in the Silvermines and Coillte drivers are dumping some light rubbish as well as driving too fast up the roads.

“I had one person come to me saying that they’d had to nearly jump into a ditch with their child to avoid getting hit by a driver.”

Cllr JP O’Meara also spoke in relation to forest litter-dumping: “A number of weeks ago there was an incident of fly-tipping in the Silvermines where someone had left a huge amount of rubbish behind them that included letters with their name on it. The people that found it took pictures, obviously trying to do the right thing, but then these got shared around on social media and it actually compromised the case so I was just wondering what the right thing to do in this situation is?”

Cllr John Carroll spoke next: “Locals are getting extremely agitated about transient groups parking up in certain areas around the towns and villages. Even just from an environmental aspect, the litter being left behind in these areas is starting to get into the water and is harming the local environment. I know there was an inspection by environment a couple of years ago but can you tell me when the most recent one was or when the next one is happening?”

Cllr Morris returned to the conversation making a follow up point to Cllr Carroll: “There’s a group that have come into Lisbunny industrial estate and they have created a serious amount of litter there and if I did the same it would have a far different result. I think we should look to get Pavee Point down here to have a discussion about it, it’s great that we do have someone that we can talk to about this area so we should make use of it.

Members from the environment sections spoke next to answer some of the councillors’ questions: “When it comes to dog fouling, it’s difficult to tackle because you have to be able to identify the perpetrators but there is a third dog warden being recruited currently so hopefully that should help matters.

“Similarly with regard to fly-tipping, it’s critical that the council be the ones to identify perpetrators because we can’t use second or third-hand information. I know people have the best intentions in trying to report people littering but where the evidence is there we will take the individual to court and solve matters.”

In relation to the other councillors’ questions, they were told that these matters would be looked into and that they would have answers for them for the next meeting,