This article is from page 18 of the 2012-09-25 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 18 JPG
A REPORT that found litter problems at a secondary school in Ennis has been criticized as “ridiculous”. Ennis Community College received a Grade C in the latest report from Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL).
According to the report, “A wide variety of litter was present at this site, particularly over the stone wall. As well as being littered the overall impression was of a poorly maintained environment. It is quite unu- sual to have schools score so poorly in the IBAL Anti-Litter survey.”
The IBAL report was raised at the September meeting of Clare VEC by committee chairman, Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind).
CEO George O’Callaghan said he understood that the survey was conducted at a time when works, including tree felling, were underway at the college. Cllr Peter Considine (FF) described IBAL’s remarks on the school as “ridiculous comment”.
Committee members Michael Cor- ley said there was a lot of disappointment that the school had been mentioned in the IBAL report.
Clare VEC is to write to Ennis Town Council about the report.
IBAL also identified a litter problem at Ennis bus and rail station.
Staff at the school were shocked at the report’s findings. Speaking at the time, school principal John Cooke said he would like to know when the inspectors visited the school and the criteria used by An Táisce.
He added, “Generally the school is kept very well and litter free, as much as is possible. The students don’t litter. In the school we train and educate them not to litter…As for the litter problem, I can’t understand where they are coming from.”
Ennis has held onto its ‘Clean to European Norms’ status in the IBAL survey, despite dropping 15 places to 31st, among 42 towns surveyed.
There were just five top ranking sites out of a total of ten surveyed in Ennis – combined with two seriously littered sites, this puts Ennis in the bottom third of the towns / cities surveyed.
Speaking last month following the release of the survey, town manager Ger Dollard admitted that Ennis Town Council are often “baffled” by IBAL’s findings. He said that Ennis is regarded as a clean town.
Last month Ennis was named Ireland’s tidiest large urban centre at the annual Tidy Town awards. It’s the fourth time that Ennis has scooped the prize, having won the award in 2006, 2008 and 2009.