Madam, – Joe Murphy (March 8th) suggests we need an advertising campaign to educate the Irish people that littering is wrong. I disagree. As penalty points, the plastic bag tax, and clamping have shown, the only thing we as a people respect is the stick.
How about litter wardens with Garda support enforcing on-the-spot fines, or else immediately having these criminals escorted down to a facility where they can separate recycled products for a few hours? As with many things in this country, we’ve ceded control of simple public space cleanliness to a relatively small section of our society bereft of any social values.
Why am I, as a Dubliner, expected to accept that people vomiting and urinating in public and littering the streets of my city is “just the way it is?” Other cities in the world put the boot in because they accept that all citizens have a right and obligation to live in a clean environment. Why do we not expect that same high standard? Or are we actually the chaotic, dirty people that racists in our nearest neighbour have always tried to paint us as?
Dublin City Council does a good job dealing with the consequences of littering, but the litter doesn’t grow on our streets. It’s put there by our fellow citizens, and until they are either €50 lighter for the privilege, or up to their knees in plastic bottles and milk cartons, they’ll keep doing it. Actions have to have consequences.
Dublin elects a new mayor later this year. It would do him or her no harm to ask first thing every morning “How many people were fined yesterday?” – Yours, etc,