Dublin City Council is investigating complaints about posters erected by a general election candidate along the route of the recent marathon.
With tensions high between political parties in advance of the anticipated calling of a general election next week, complaints were made about posters put up by the team of Fine Gael general election candidate and Senator Mary Seery Kearney. The posters wished “good luck” to “the runners of the Dublin City Marathon”. They had an image of Ms Seery Kearney, who urged runners to “keep it going, stride by stride”, encouraging them to become “stronger by the mile”. They were was signed off by Ms Kearney as a “general election candidate”.
Ms Seery Kearney has confirmed that she put 15 posters along the route, in a move which attracted complaints from other political parties. Election posters can only be erected 30 days before polling day. Any election posters put up before then could be met with an on-the-spot fine of €150.
A spokesman for Dublin City Council confirmed they received “a number of complaints referring to the erection of alleged illegal posters in a number of locations along the Dublin Marathon route on Saturday the 26th and Sunday the 27th of October. No permission was granted by Dublin City Council for the erection of these posters. Any posters erected without permission are in breach of section 19 of the Litter Pollution Acts 1997-2009. Appropriate enforcement action will be taken post full investigation.”
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Ms Seery Kearney said she has “huge respect for the runners and all the small and big charities they support”, saying she “wanted to wish them well and so put up the posters”.
“The Dublin City marathon is run by 22,500 people from all over the world including people in Dublin South Central running for charities big and small from fundraising for defibrillators to charities like Féileacáin. I put up 15 posters for less than 24 hours to cheer them on and show my respect and appreciation for their work. It’s not illegal – rules change from local authority to local authority – for something to be illegal it has to be uniformly applied throughout the State.”
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