Removing or de-facing of posters is a fact of life at election time
There hasn’t been an election campaign yet where posters aren’t deliberately torn down or de-faced. It’s run of the mill for politicians who stand for elections, it’s not nice but there seems to be no solution other than ban them outright altogether. Do they actually lend anything to a person’s campaign or not? Many politicians swear by them as excellent tools for recognition while others adopt a somewhat trendy or green approach and say they aren’t putting up any posters at all, and still manage to sneak up rather foreboding looking billboards battered into roadside green patches!
Indeed, unless I am mistaken no candidate in Sligo/Leitrim has opted out of postering at this election and this despite the green agenda never been as strong with climate change worrying the hell out of everyone. Without doubt posters are a blight but at least there’s fines in place if they are still up a couple of weeks after an election. Seasoned politicians will tell you that they always hold back a fair number of posters for the final week as many will have disappeared by then. At roughly €10-€15 a pop they aren’t cheap. The latest to complain about posters being taken down was Senator Frank Feighan (Fine Gael). He said most of his erected at the week-end around Sligo have been gone missing.
Councillor Thomas Walsh (Fine Gael) has been vocal about his posters being de-faced while Deputy Eamon Scanlon has posted that CCTV has picked up a couple of culprits who have been taking his down.
“A number of people have been caught on CCTV removing my posters. I know who they are, but if anyone should witness people taking down more I’d be grateful if you could let me know where.
“Contesting an election is the right of any member of the public bar none, and removing posters is a callous act regardless of political affiliation. I have always fought fair and will continue to do so,” he said.
Cllr Walsh has referred to the issue more than once in his campaign. He certainly has a lot of posters up and he says posters play a valuable role in communicating what parties are contesting and what candidates are running in particular areas. He said this was especially true for a first time candidate.
“Posters are expensive and the costs quickly add up. Most candidates are conscious of the environmental impact as well and I welcome moves to reduce the number of posters used in a campaign. All candidates expect and plan for some effort being necessary to go back in the early phase of the campaign and put up replacement posters, remove damaged posters and replace with new ones.
“I don’t understand why candidate posters including mine are being damaged and removed at this stage of the campaign,” he said last Friday. He admits that his appeals to “good citizenship” as a way of halting the damage to his posters had obviously not been successful. Why anyone would choose to go out and deliberately damage posters leaves me struggling to understand what’s going on,” he said. Now, he’s inviting would be de-facers to get creative. “I would say to them, please don’t damage or mess with any poster of any candidate, but if you feel compelled to make a contribution to the election campaign by messing with posters then leave them in place and then do your poster graffiti work with creativity and style. Show us all something that you can be proud of and that will also make us smile or make us think while leaving the essence of the poster intact so that it’s election message remains clear.
“If you want to get some wider recognition for your poster graffiti work then send a photo of your work on one of my posters and I will post it on my twitter page what I consider the best of what I receive”.