ONE thing will not alter, though administrations come and go with the tides, and that is the litter problem of Ireland. It will not go because there is no political will for it to go - and it is quite clear that the Irish people of their own volition will not solve the litter problem without coercion, and a modicum of education.
We are far too nice about litter. Irish Business Against Litter last November uttered a joyous cry of welcome to the Litter Pollution Bill upon its publication. IBAL deserves to be heard on this issue - it has commissioned two large and interesting reports on where litter is to be found, and when and why and so on. Indeed, IBAL's work on the litter problem provides a sound basis upon which a meaningful assault on that clearly intractable problem could begin.
Old Pieties
So why, knowing what he does, did the chairman of IBAL, Tom Cavanagh, welcome the Bill when it does no more than rehash old pieties, introduced no executive powers to enforce the new law and in real terms actually reduced the fine from that which was introduced for littering when the old law was passed in 1982?
No doubt ministers are not used to being criticised to their face in public. But that is exactly what a minister - any minister - deserves who, when faced with a problem which appalls foreigners, must be costing us millions in lost revenue and general pollution, and which has proved immune to all remedial action, actually reduces fines against offenders. The time has come to be abusive, to name county councils and government ministers who are not pulling their weight in this matter, especially as summer approaches.
Row do I know it is summer? Because some of the richest people in Ireland play polo, and each time they polo in the Phoenix Park, their grooms leave hundreds of strips of plastic adhesive tape beside the playing pitch. I have written about this before, many times, and I do not presume to think the polo players of Ireland actually read this column. But it would be to nice to think that word filtered through to them that maybe, since they do own horseboxes worth £100,000, and loads of fourwheel drives, and big fat sleek Mercedes which cost the equivalent to Tanzania's foreign reserves, they could clean up after their extremely expensive afternoon thwacking a ball from horseback.
Is that too much to ask of them? It is not. Is it too much to ask of the State which owns the park which these fine fellows regularly cause to be littered with pieces of indigestible plastic - no doubt a most tasty morsel or million for the passing hordes of deer - to observe who is responsible, to prosecute the offenders, and to withdraw the use of public land from those who have not the social conscience to deserve such a subsidised amenity? No, it is not.
And that said, what will happen? Nothing. This summer, like every summer, the new millionaires of Ireland will display their new ponies, and their new sinewy professional players from Argentina, and their new horseboxes, and their new four wheelers, and then leave the polo grounds looking like a dumping ground for a plastic tape factory.
Particularly Disgusting
Why not? Nobody seems to find this particularly disgusting, because, as we all know, litter is somebody else's problem. The IBAL poll revealed all sorts of wondrous pieties, precisely of the kind that this government and all governments before it, back to the first syllable of recorded time, would have subscribed to. We need not be surprised that 78 per cent of the IBAL respondents thought that a litter free Ireland would attract more tourists, that 71 per cent of the people surveyed thought that the litter laws are not enforced, and that 78 per cent thought there should be stronger enforcement of the laws.
Good. What does this mean? It means that there is a politically receptive audience, amenable to political will and positive action. But since the issue does not seem to be a vote swaying one, politicians, seem content to utter platform pieties about it and then move to the next item on the agenda.
What we have seen from Dail Eireann is no more than lip service to the issue. The current maximum fine of £1,500 is in real terms £200 less than the fine of £800 in the 1982 Bill. So what was the Minister doing - and his civil servants - when they came up with a law which purported to be severe, but which was not, and which has no executive arm to impose it? It is mere wind, a Howlin gale.
Litter is like sin: we are all agin it. Yet organisers of great public events do nothing to reduce the litter problem. The Croke Park and Lansdowne Road authorities should by law - since, like their polo playing cousins they lack the social conscience to face their responsibilities voluntarily - be obliged to provide litter bins on all the streets leading to their stadiums. Equally, fastfood outlets should be obliged to employ one street cleaner per x number of in house employees, so that the public is not expected to clean up after their profit making. A moderately versatile mind could devise all sorts of social techniques to improve our litter record - starting, of course, with education in the schools.
Corporate Pocket
But we cannot wait the 15 years until that generation scurries down the street with its litter retained in its corporate pocket, hunting dutifully for a bin. And we cannot depend upon the will of politicians, who will utter the normal pious blather that they are agin it, and agin sin, and world hunger, and high tides in Longford, and cannibalism in the Vatican and goldfish which eat children. Yep, we can take a vote on that lot. Good. Passed unanimously. Next item on the agenda today.
Sorry, not good enough. It is time for IBAL to go on the attack, in public, and face to face with a Minister. It is time for the Phoenix Park authorities to announce the closure of the polo grounds. It is time to ...
Oh wise up.