AFTER Limerick City finished fortieth out of 40 towns and cities in An Taisce’s IBAL Anti-Litter League report, councillors have deemed their findings “very suspect”, and called for greater transparency.
At this Monday’s Metropolitan District meeting, Limerick Council’s Director of Environment Kieran Lehane expressed his disappointment at the results as he praised his cleansing staff and city traders for their “great endeavours”.
Going forward, he spoke of the possibility of removing the textile bank on the Dock Road, as Limerick was penalised by IBAL for the poor condition of this site. 80 fines were issued at the Dock Road bring bank for illegal dumping in the last 12-month period to try and deal with the ongoing issue.
“As I understand it, people are coming to the textile bank and, if it is full, they’re throwing the material they brought all over the place, and in turn, we are being marked down. And there’s an old adage: if the street is clean, people won’t litter,” Mr Lehane commented.
Council staff, he continued, will now focus their attention on litter black-spots marked down by IBAL in their annual report.
“In the Metro area, to the 12 months ending in June, there were 2,610 inspections carried out by our Environmental team, and they’re fairly short-staffed,” he added.
Fine Gael councillor Dan McSweeney deemed the IBAL report very disappointing and took the view that it is not a true reflection of “what we’re seeing on the ground in Limerick”. Cllr McSweeney maintained that An Taisce now have a duty to provide greater transparency in relation to their inspections.
“We have nameless people writing reports about our city centre — nameless, they could be anybody. I think we need to seek clarity and seek transparency in relation to IBAL going forward,” he insisted.
Cllr Sarah Kiely (FG) confessed to being a cynic when it comes to IBAL inspectors, and pointed out that An Taisce recently criticised Limerick City and County Council on its housing delivery.
“An Taisce has no role, not in any shape or form, to comment on housing delivery. Their job is to protect the environment and understand the complex issues that may benefit the people they represent, like us here in this chamber. So, it’s very suspect that all of a sudden we’re getting a hammering again. I think it’s very important that An Taisce come in here and give a presentation on exactly what they do,” Cllr Kiely said.
Independent councillor Frankie Daly also felt that An Taisce’s markings for Limerick in their litter survey were “very suspect”.
“We have a beautiful city, we’re making inroads, and it’s just negativity, but it’s a snapshot. I’d question the metrics, how they came to this conclusion,” he said.
Cllr Maria Donoghue considered it very unfair for IBAL to target Limerick in this way.
“I can honestly say that it’s not consistent to the level of rubbish that they were trying to point out. I thought it was quite unfair, in fact, I wonder if that inspection was carried out the day after a large event when the local authority hadn’t a chance to deal with the rubbish that does appear after large events,” Cllr Donoghue concluded.