DOG-FOULING ‘TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL’
TOUGHER measures need to be adopted to punish dog owners for failing to pick up their pets’ faeces as the problem of dog-fouling in Listowel threatens to get completely out of hand.
That was the message from councillors on Monday as they attested to disgusting scenes at a number of locations in Listowel, first signalled at the meeting by Sinn Féin’s Tom Barry who said he had never seen the problem as bad in Listowel.
Welcome as a recent radio campaign by the Council was, it is clearly not going far enough to tackle the issue he and colleagues said.
“It is absolutely disgusting what is on the streets,” Cllr Barry informed officials. “I I have never seen it as bad. This is an issue that is getting totally out of control. Even last evening I walked up the Ballybunion road and you are picking your steps all the way. I think we really need to focus on getting the message out there that this can’t be tolerated and empower our wardens to demand that people produce a bag, the same way we can go to people’s houses and ask them to produce evidence that they are using a waste service,” Cllr Barry said.
Many dog owners who do pick up their pets’ waste are later simply flinging the bags of crap over fences and into ditches, Fine Gael councillor Mike Kennelly warned. “The disturbing fact on this is that people are picking up their dog foul in the yellow bags but lo and behold what are they doing? They are throwing them in over fences and ditches. People are doing the right thing to be seen, but then when the blind eye is turned they are throwing them away. Listowel Coursing Club did a clean up and took 40 yellow bags from just over their fence on the Ballybunion road... We’re in the middle of a pandemic, people are geting out to walk and walking their dogs like never before so we’ve got to get [the message] out there,” Cllr Kennelly said. Sinn Féin Cllr Robert Beasley agreed that the situation appears to be getting worse. “We have to become much more serious in relation to this situation as it is completely out of control. Nothing seems to improve it.”