PURE SECURE FOR THREE MORE YEARS
at ‘ litter blackspots.’
‘On behalf of the stakeholders of PURE I would like to thank Minister Denis Naughten, and the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, for their continued support.
‘The funding enables the project to continue with the removal of illegal dumping from the Wicklow and Dublin Uplands and our work with communities in upland areas through our community environmental project ‘The PURE Mile’,’ he said.
‘It will also allow us to deploy covert CCTV equipment in problematic areas which are prone to continual illegal dumping. These won’t just be used as a preventative measure, they will also be used as a measure to secure prosecutions.’
‘I look forward to working with the department, the stakeholders in PURE, and the numerous communities and groups in Wicklow and Dublin Uplands over the next three years.’
PURE is a partnership project and the first of its kind in Ireland which incorporates statutory and non-statutory organisations, including: Wicklow County Council, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, South Dublin County Council, Coillte, National Parks and Wildlife Service, and the Wicklow Uplands Council.
It is funded by Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment,
Bryan Doyle, Chief Executive of Wicklow County Council, has welcomed the funding announcement, which will provide €345,000 to the project up until 2019.
He said: ‘Wicklow County Council, as lead partner to this very successful project, will continue to work with all stakeholders. I wish to thank Mr Ian Davis for his dedication and commitment to PURE.’
Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Denis Naughten, made the announcement about funding on Wednesday and praised PURE’s success rate.
‘ This partnership between local communities, local authorities and government agencies has enjoyed great success in keeping one of our most beautiful and most visited landscapes free of litter and the blight of illegal dumping. We are all aware that the Wicklow and Dublin Uplands are one of this country’s most important and popular amenity areas for both tourists and citizens.’ AND so Christmas is done and dusted for another year. Santa delivered the goods, (well most of them anyway. I have a bone to pick with him about the missing Littlest Pet Shop!) I didn’t poison anyone with the dinner and there were no major rows. A few minor arguments perhaps but at Christmas that’s par for the course.
I got shamed into doing the Christmas Day Swim by Himself who told me I had to do it in honour of my Late Mother in Law who braved the elements every year up until her illness. If I’d known in time, I’d have gone on a diet or at least shaved my legs! In the end I donned a big flowery shower cap so no one would recognise me.
Everything was going according to plan until St. Stephen’s Day when a night out resulted in all the cousins coming to our house to be babysat by The Teenager who incidentally doesn’t really like children at all. However he was warned his payment would be performance related so we were assured the four under eights and two under elevens would be treated well.
That was until some bright spark who shall remain nameless came up with the idea of banning all electronic devices while the adults went to the pub. Genius! What happens when you put six kids in a house and take away their iPods, Nintendos and iPads? Bloody carnage, that’s what happens!
We were only settling in approximately 30 minutes after our arrival when we received the first phone call from the Teenager. The Squirts were starting to kick off, he said. I did what any responsible mum would do and told him to give them sweets!
Twenty minutes later another phone call. The smallest squirt had found markers and drawn all over the living room wall. I passed the phone to the person responsible for the electronics ban and told her to deal with it. She told the Teenager to put them all to bed...in my feckin’ house!
Ten minutes passed and another phone call. A cacophony of wailing and shouting could be heard in the background. ‘I. Am. Losing. The. Will. To. Live!’ the Teenager declared, telling me to tell the aunts and uncles to come and collect their offspring tout suite.
And so our night came to an abrupt end. We marched the ten minute walk back with me giving out, ‘stupid bloody idea taking the electronics off them,’ whilst the guilty party told me my son wasn’t a very good babysitter. A certain frostiness descended. The men hung behind staying well out of it.
By the time we got home they were all fast asleep, the living room looked like it had been ransacked by lime green marker wielding burglars and the Teenager was drinking coffee to calm himself down! Sleeping children were carried to taxis and we closed the door in relief. We are currently incommunicado.
Sure it wouldn’t be Christmas without a bit of a tiff!