This article is from page 14 of the 2012-05-22 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 14 JPG
CLARE County Council is to write to the Department of the Environment seeking legislation to be introduced to ban posters from certain areas of towns and village – with separate poster zones being created instead.
This follows a motion put forward by Cllr Paul Murphy (FG) at last night’s meeting of Clare County Council which called for a permit system to be introduced which would require each election candidate or political party to notify Clare County Council of the number of locations of all posters erected in Clare.
“One important angle is safety – there is a serious health an safety question for people putting up and taking down posters. They are also distractions for people looking at them [the posters] when driving on our road,” said Cllr Murphy.
“I am not looking for a total ban, I think posters are a useful things – especially for young voters. I believe that they do serve a purpose for younger candidates whose faces might not be that well known.”
The motion received support from all the candidates present, including a number of councillors who reported having their posters stolen during an election, only for them to reemerge in another part of the county once the vote is complete.
“I have always been an advocate of the central locations for posters,” said Cllr Patricia McCarthy (Ind).
“We all know that posters do disappear in some areas – a poster might disappear and may not reappear for a year or more and they have been used for some other purpose in the mean time.”
Cllr Joe Arkins (FG) also reported some of his posters appearing in private residences around the county.
“In my area they take them down the day after you put them up. People take them down and then put them up again after the election,” he said.
“It is very hard to keep track of all your posters between the wind and these individuals who seem to think that these posters would make a nice additions to their own house.”
Cllr PJ Kelly called for a total ban on all election posters – saying they he had never had to use them to get elected.