FROM OFFERING free daffodil bulbs to setting up a phone line to report your neighbours, Dublin’s local authorities are employing various tactics this year to stamp out the age-old tradition of setting Halloween bonfires.
Dublin City Council has said no Halloween bonfires are legal, and it does not sanction or licence bonfires held by community groups or any other organisations.
Nor does it conduct its own bonfires, and the council is asking householders to report any proposed bonfires, any “stockpiling” of materials, or any business or individuals which they believe may be contributing waste and other materials for bonfires.
The council’s Halloween safety campaign Be Safe – Stay Safe, which aims to educate communities on the dangers of bonfires, is launched tomorrow. A council spokesman said bonfires are banned for environmental, health and safety reasons. “Often hazardous materials such as tyres or canisters end up in bonfires – they can be very toxic and dangerous. Then there are the dangers associated with bonfires collapsing, or the fire getting out of hand. There is no such thing as a legal bonfire.”
The Department of the Environment said there was no specific law banning bonfires, but they could be interpreted by local authorities as a prohibited activity under several pieces of legislation including litter acts, air pollution legislation and the ban on backyard burning of waste. Penalties for burning waste are some of the most stringent, with people facing fines of up to €3,000.
Illegal bonfires also increase the pressure on the fire services at Halloween. Dublin’s fire and ambulance service receives up to four times the normal number of calls at Halloween.
However, the city council said the number of calls dropped from 888 in 2007 to 710 last year following the launch of the safety campaign.
There are also significant costs associated with the clean-up of bonfires. Last year the council spent around €1 million on its Halloween “action programme”, including repairs and replacement of street bins and bottle banks, the clean-up and remediation of green spaces where fires were set, removing stockpiled materials and the running of alternative, diversionary events.
A neighbouring local authority is trying to entice communities away from having bonfires by offering them daffodil bulbs.
Under its Bulbs not Bonfires strategy, South Dublin County Council will give daffodil bulbs to communities which successfully managed to prevent a bonfire where there was one last year.
Dublin City Council’s diversionary activities include a Halloween festival in Ballymun, and organised fireworks displays in several other suburbs. Its out-of-hours emergency number for reporting stockpiling is 01-6796186.
