Councils remove 5,000 ‘cash for cars’ signs

Authorities have been unable to prosecute people putting up thousands of illegal posters

Dublin City Council said it was removing ‘Cash for Cars’ signs on a continuous basis. Photograph:  David Sleator/The Irish Times
Dublin City Council said it was removing ‘Cash for Cars’ signs on a continuous basis. Photograph: David Sleator/The Irish Times

Local authorities in Dublin have removed about 5,000 unauthorised ‘Cash for Cars’ signs over the past year and a half.

Thousands of signs advertising ‘Cash for Cars’ and waste collection services have been placed on traffic signals, public lighting poles and other street furniture throughout Dublin since mid-2012

A spokeswoman for Dublin City Council said the local authority is “removing these signs on a continuous basis” and puts the number of signs taken down by the council’s litter wardens at approximately 1,500.

The council said it also passes the phone numbers that appear on the signs to the Gardaí, with whom they have been liaising in an effort to disconnect the numbers.

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Fingal County Council said there had been a “proliferation” of the signs in its administrative area and its litter wardens have so far removed over 1,000 of them.

“Fingal County Council, has made every effort to trace the people who erect these signs in an effort to secure convictions under the Litter Pollution Act 1997, including contacting the mobile phone numbers on the signs,” the council said. “To date, all of these numbers relate to unregistered and untraceable mobile phones.”

Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council also puts the number of signs removed “in the region of 1,000”. A council spokeswoman said “cross departmental resourcing has been provided by the transportation and environment departments to stop this illegal practice, however, the problem persists.”

A spokeswoman for South Dublin County Council said they had taken down a similar number of signs. “It’s something that you see everywhere so we’re dealing with it as best we can,” she said.

Dan Griffin

Dan Griffin

Dan Griffin is an Irish Times journalist