Clare Dumping Spree Prompts Calls For Stronger Penalties

0:00Well, I suppose the one thing I saw yesterday was an anus because I was over chock yours for something or a Kushna Hona there on the gorge road and I took a walk out the other road and it was beautiful piece of a day. And next thing I passed a gateway and saw two mattresses and a chair from like a seat thrown in over a gate. You couldn't even open the farm gate to throw and just inside the gateway. Then this morning as well, I was going into Kerosh and along the end of the 60s, there was a sign saying, don't think it's prohibited, prohibited. And there was big bag of rubbish just left at the same. And then, sure down the end of my road, there's rubbish dogs there. And as the council had informed me, they do as much as they can. But when something is on private property, it's up to the person who owns the property to remove the rubbish or disposal items. And then the council would support and then if they need to get rid of it to recycling or is that kind of thing,

1:00they'd give them no passes or whatever in like that they need. Well, it's just, it's an awful thing for that farmer to come along and see that. And every farmer has a list of jobs to do that's never ending and to get that landed on top of you could really troll your day. So I feel really sorry for the farmer there today. And for the council people who've come along and picked up after everyone because they're just, you know, dumping wherever they can in the quietness. But this is jumped the bag of rubbish at the sign was actually jumped on the end 60 age before you get into the rush. It was right on the main road. So people don't care. They just don't care. They don't think anywhere. Equally, I mean, a frustrating for the farmer away as to council resources, potentially dangerous the fact that it was by the roadside. If that perhaps hadn't been picked up overnight and you have to assume a watch put there overnight when you're not going to be seen. Could have spilled out onto the road. It's contents, anything at all. Very frustrating for, what's very frustrating is, for motorists and for animals, you know, whether it be into a cattle in a field

2:02or it's going into a river or anything like that. It's absolutely shocking. And it is a public health risk. June, I suppose there's only so much that the local authority can do about this. They can't have cameras everywhere there. It's enforcement team can't be everywhere. But do we need to increase penalties for this to really act as an actual deterrent? To put our chance legally, don't pretend like this. Right. Well, I suppose, you know, we need a collaborative approach between the local authorities, communities, and state agencies. And we have a nancy dumping initiative that provides funding to help with this, say, into 2024, Care County Council got 60,000 euro and a 20,000, 23,000, 90,000 euro to help various initiatives. But yes, we need an increase in, I suppose, monitoring and enforcement and then penalties. But I know that there is a very fine line when you're talking about CCTV cameras and drones. All these things have been legislated for

3:03and can be used with certain codes of practice by various county councils. But I suppose it's kind of a last resort and it has to be proportionate because you don't want to have an evasion of people's privacy as well. But to be honest, I don't know what's going to deter people if they don't think they're going to be seen.