Ministry in massive clean up of St Julian’s in wake of St Patrick’s Day revelry

Three tonnes of garbage cleaned up in two hours – job cost €3,400

The Transport Ministry yesterday said that emergency services had to be deployed to clean up the enormous amount of waste generated and left behind in the wake of Friday’s St Patrick’s Day festivities.

The clean up was not carried out by the local council as had been the practice in recent years. The ministry said St Julian’s local council had not informed the Cleansing Directorate that it would not be cleaning up the mess.

The ministry said 25 workers were taken off other jobs to do the work, which involved the collection of three tonnes of waste in two hours.

The expenses – €3,400 – were borne by the government, the ministry said.

St Julian’s deputy mayor Albert Buttigieg yesterday morning expressed his anger at the mess left behind in the main square in the locality after throngs of people attended the now-traditional St Patrick’s Day event.

Posting photos on his Facebook page, the deputy mayor wrote that the bar owners “now expect the local council to clean up the mess left behind at a cost of €3,000 – to be paid by the council while the bar owners profit.

However, it later turned out that the council did not pay for anything because it did not employ cleaning services and the Transport Ministry had to intervene for the job to be done.

“While they are now surely happy counting their euros gained, we the residents have to face all this. Thank you,” Mr Buttigieg wrote sarcastically.

All this would have been avoided without any expense if made a handsome the local council proposal, as approved by all councillors, had not been blocked, he added.

This week, the Law Courts upheld a request made by the bars in the area after the council had given permission to an event organiser to set up stalls in the area, which would have meant that the clean up would have been the organiser’s problem.

Shame on your greed, Mr Buttigieg wrote yesterday.