Councillors seek to catch culprits on camera

APPEALING to the common decency of people to refrain from dumping domestic rubbish has fallen on deaf ears, so now Shannon Town Council is to press for the installation of CCTV cameras to catch the culprits.

According to town councillor Michael Fleming, the road leading to the Shannon Diamond Club has become something of a blackspot and a dumping ground for all sorts of domestic rubbish.
At this week’s town council meeting, he appealed to the local authority and Clare County Council to employ some sort of a system to monitor the serious level of illegal dumping taking place in the locality.
“I’ve received numerous complaints from people on this matter. I’ve even monitored the situation myself. Recently, two areas had been cleaned up but now they are as bad as ever,” he commented.
However, assistant senior executive officer with the council’s environment and water services directorate, Betty Devanny outlined that the council wasn’t aware of the serious nature of the illegal dumping in recent times.
She admitted, “There were problems with illegal dumping at this location in early 2010. The illegal dumping occurred on the road leading to the Diamond Club and also in the private car park of the club. A clean-up of the road leading to the club was carried out by Shannon Area-based staff and the environmental patrol warden.
“A letter was issued to the owner of the car park requesting a clean-up of the car park and to secure the car park from further illegal dumping. The owner complied with this request.”
Ms Devanny emphasised that the environmental patrol warden regularly patrols Shannon town and the surrounding areas as part of his litter patrol route and said this would continue.
“Clare County Council has installed CCTV surveillance at various areas throughout the county, which has been effective in deterring littering. This area can be considered for CCTV surveillance if serious illegal littering continues to occur here,” she added.
Councillor Greg Duff said that the illegal dumping of domestic rubbish is not just confined to the road leading to the Shannon Diamond Club.
He outlined how he, along with others in the Tidy Towns committee, engaged in a clean-up of the wetland area and “within a few hours filled a lorry with beds, shopping trolleys and bags of beer cans and bottles”.
“We have a health and safety matter here and it has to be addressed in a serious manner by the council,” he added.
Councillor Gerry Flynn claimed that some of the people responsible for dumping their domestic rubbish are people who don’t have a collection facility.
He suggested that it may be a worthwhile exercise on the county council’s behalf to check out who is and isn’t availing of collection services.