The message is blunt and designed to embarrass. And if you have a problem with English, it need not be a problem because it is also in Italian and French. "Ignore The Litter Laws - The Government Does!" is the unambiguous notice on posters currently showing at billboard sites in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway. The month-long £50,000 campaign is funded by Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL), a pressure group whose bugbear is the State's untidy attitude to litter. IBAL wants the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, to enforce the law ruthlessly and is encouraging him to start with businesses.
"If the litter laws are enforced the Government and local authorities would have to spend a lot less on picking it up," IBAL's chairman, Dr Tom Cavanagh, said yesterday. He pointed out that the 1997 Litter Act puts responsibility on businesses to keep the footpath in front of their premises tidy. Firms such as fast food places, have responsibility for 100 metres in all directions.
Dr Cavanagh said, however, that local authorities were reluctant to prosecute businesses because they paid rates which funded the local authorities. The Garda were reluctant to enforce the law, he claimed, and litter wardens had no powers of arrest.
A spokesman for the Minister said, however, that enforcement had increased significantly and litter fines had risen six-fold since the Government came into office. "Only last week Dublin Corporation published a list of names of those prosecuted, notably including members of the business community," the spokesman said.
"The Minister is taking every opportunity to encourage the local authorities to enforce prosecutions of the Litter Act." The spokesman added that the number of litter wardens had increased significantly.
