SPIKE IN ILLEGAL DUMPING SINCE CHRISTMAS
FIANNA Fáil councillor Garry Laffan says that his phone has been ringing constantly in the period since Christmas with reports of illegal dumping taking place on roads just outside Wexford town.
On one occasion, Cllr Laffan came across black bags of rubbish that had burst and spilled all over the side of the road just a short distance from Wexford County Council’s recycling facility at Holmestown.
‘I suppose unfortunately people have a lot of excess litter after Christmas,’ he said. ‘I think we’ve seen a rise in these “man with a van” services being offered on Facebook and DoneDeal and very few of them have a litter licence. While people might think that they’re getting rid of their rubbish in the proper way, it’s finding its way to being dumped on country roads outside town.’
Other instances highlighted by Cllr Laffan include bags of rubbish dumped in a gateway at Ballinaglough, Barntown, and the picturesque Killurin road, out past the Heritage Park.
‘ That is a beautiful stretch of road and it’s just so sad to see this type of thing,’ Cllr Laffan said. ‘ These are just a sample of cases that we can see and that have been reported to me too. I’ve been getting a lot of calls on it and there’s other stuff being fired into ditches and onto other people’s land that maybe you can’t see from the road.’
‘I’ ll be raising this at our next council meeting,’ he concluded. ‘We need to see what we can do to actually start prosecuting these people. We need the legislation in place and we need people to report it when they see it, otherwise these people will continue to get away with it. It’s a mindset thing with these people, because they could bring this stuff to any recycling centre.’