Dublin Corporation this week published the names and addresses of individuals and companies who were successfully prosecuted for litter offences in July.
The corporation has been running advertisements in national newspapers, listing successful court prosecutions for litter offences after fines had not been paid. The corporation will also print the names in local papers.
Dublin Corporation said the number of fines paid trebled for two weeks after similar advertisements were printed in newspapers on May 31st. Mr Willy Ward, assistant superintendent for cleansing with Dublin Corporation, said the average number of litter fines paid rose from 20 to 25 daily to between 80 and 90.
He said the number of fines for litter offences has not decreased since the campaign began. About 400 fines a week are given out by the corporation's 20 litter wardens.
Mr Ward said this week was the second time the names were listed in newspapers and the campaign would need a few months to assess its effect on litter habits. "It is focusing some people's minds. You can't judge it on one issue, one advert," he said.
Mr Ward said 9,112 fines had been issued so far this year and only 2,388 had been paid. Not all litter offenders who failed to pay up were prosecuted, because of difficulties in identifying people who littered with their refuse and problems with people giving wrong or false addresses.
The corporations in Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford said they had no plans to publish the names of those prosecuted for littering in local newspapers. Mr Stephen Scully, administrative officer in Cork Corporation's environment department, said they were not considering following Dublin's campaign in case an individual was wrongly identified.
Mr Tom Cavanagh, of the organisation Irish Businesses Against Litter, said he was in favour of Dublin Corporation's campaign, but full-time litter wardens were needed in each local authority. He said wardens should have greater powers of enforcing the law.
Mr Cavanagh said only a small number of people were being caught for littering. "This is a PR stunt to show the corporation is doing something. They haven't got around to saying, `how are we going to get rid of this'," he said.
The Department of the Environment's latest statistics show 16,648 people were given on-the-spot fines for littering between July and December last year and 7,151 paid fines. While 640 people were prosecuted for littering, 282 were convicted.