Council are getting tough on fly-tippers

IT’S time the Council “put away the soft stick” and “take out the hard stick and use it” on illegal dumpers.

That’s according to Councillor Tom MacSharry who was commenting after a presentation on Waste at the Council meeting.

Members heard from Official Siobhán Gillen that a pilot project is underway in Rathbraughan Park in Sligo and Tubbercurry which checks whether residents are using kerbside waste collectors (bin trucks) or bringing their own waste down to a civic amenity, using receipts as proof.

So far, of 155 households in Rathbraughan, 65 houses have not accounted for how they dispose of their waste.

Of the almost 1,500 households in Tubbercurry, over half (833) are unaccounted for.

In 2017, the Council spent ¤41,500 removing over 75 tonnes of waste from the Holy Well, Sligo, Glencarrick Estate Sligo, Tullycusheen Bog, Tubbercurry and Clooncoose Bog, Ballymote.

The Council has already spent ¤47,000 in the first six months of 2018 removing waste from Carrowntemple Bog, Gorteen, Rathbraughan Park Sligo and Carrane Hill in South East Sligo.

Works are currently on-going and an aerial survey also completed.

Members heard of two recent District Court prosecutions where one man who dumped rubbish at Lough Talt was fined ¤550 and a truck driver was fined ¤400 for throwing a coffee cup out the window of his truck on the N17.

Cllr MacSharry appealed to the Government councillors to get CCTV funding as cameras were “a vital deterrent.”

Cllr Hubert Keaney said other Councils were “doing a damn sight less” and the Council was doing “great work”. Council official Finian O’Driscoll said they were “not afraid to take the hard stick” out in terms of prosecuting perpetrators.