Dumping was again on the agenda during recent Council meetings, as Fine Gael Councillors Niamh O’Donovan and Frank Quinlan both raised the issue.
While Cllr O’Donovan highlighted that rules around fly-tipping on private land remain unfair, Cllr Quinlan commented that he believes the CCTV being trialled in the City is working.
“Is there anything we can do around fly-tipping or illegal dumping on private property?” asked Councillor O’Donovan.
“There’s people out there that are being hit hard by illegal dumping on their property that they are constantly having clean up.”
In response, Director of Services, Gabriel Hynes, confirmed that the dumping issues on private land remained the responsibility of the land owner, but suggested the council may help to pursue a prosecution.
“Yes, fly-tipping on private land is the responsibility of the landowner to ensure that it is cleaned up,” he said.
“Just to encourage people, if there is an incident you can certainly report it to ourselves and we will carry out an inspection of what is being deposited to see if we can get any evidence to bring a prosecution,” advised Mr. Hynes.
The location of CCTV to tackle illegal dumping has proved a controversial topic in recent months, as Comeragh Councillors have suggested that their region deserves more help than it gets. In response to this, it was explained that the City has far more reported incidents of dumping. This too was questioned by Comeragh Councillors, who suggest the reports do not reflect the reality as the Comeragh region has volunteer groups who go litter picking regularly.
“Out of the 31 new locations, I personally see a significant improvement where the cameras are installed,” said Cllr Quinlan in relation to Waterford City.
He also asked if City Councillors could make suggestions for the next batch of CCTV.
“It’s good to hear that you are noticing the difference,” said Senior Executive Officer for Waterford Council, Dawn Wallace.
“A number of people have been fined now in as a result of littering.
“When it comes to new locations we have to use the evidence from CRM, that shows where there are littering issues. So we would encourage people to continue to use CRM as a tool for reporting to us because that is legally what we have to use as evidence.
“We will be reviewing the efficacy of where we have those cameras in the third quarter this year, and looking at where there are other areas we might need to locate them,” she added.
AARON KENT
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme
