Dublin City Council has offered to provide a poster removal service to candidates in the forthcoming local elections as part of efforts to clamp down on election littering.
Negotiations are ongoing between the party leaders on the city council and council officials to finalise details of the scheme, which would be available to all candidates.
It is envisaged that each candidate would pay a fixed fee of between €350 and 500 in advance of the election. In return the council would remove their posters following the election and recycle them.
The service is the first of its kind to be offered by a local authority and city officials describe it as a pragmatic alternative to an all-out ban on election postering.
Under anti-litter legislation, candidates are required to remove their posters within seven days of polling day, and face on-the-spot fines of 125 for each poster that remains.
Following the last general election, the city council issued €8,500 in fines for election littering.
The idea was put forward by the Labour party in Dublin.
"We recognised there was a problem and we just felt this was the way forward," according to Councillor Dermot Lacey (Labour).