Dundalk councillors call for action on clothes bins following IBAL report

Councillors at the Dundalk Municipal District January meeting called for action to be taken in relation to clothes banks in the town, following the recent Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) report which ranked Dundalk 39th out of 40 towns and cities surveyed, and highlighted the Recycle Centre on Castletown Road, which received a Grade D in the survey.

Cllr Emma Coffey raised the matter at the January meeting, saying that it seemed to be the same areas that are “dragging us down”, including recycle areas, clothing banks, and in particular, an uptake on vaping utensils and alcohol related refuse.

Cllr Coffey mentioned areas mentioned positively in the report including the train station and the Red Barns road, highlighting that volunteers from Dundalk Tidy Towns tidy it at least once a week.

Commenting on the report, Cllr Coffey said that "it's very, very disappointing” and that it was a report that receives a lot of publication, both nationally and internationally.

She said that "to have a former winner of this survey to go down to the second last is very disappointing", asking, "is there anything we can do to stamp this out?

Cllr Coffey went on to say that it appears that clothing seems to be pushed behind the actual bins, and asked if it was the owners of the property who are responsible or is it the licensed owners of the clothing banks.

The Dundalk South councillor highlighted the "hard work of the council and the community volunteers that are pushing hard", and that the result of the report was in stark contrast to the news that the town been nominated for an international award for one of its murals."

Cllr Maeve Yore reminded the meeting that they had been told previously that an audit of all the clothes bins in the town was to take place, but there has been no update on that. Highlighting the work done by Dundalk Tidy Towns, Cllr Yore added that "IBAL report is all well and good [but] we made tremendous progress."

Cllr Edel Corrigan said that there was previous discussions at Dundalk Municipal District meetings about what could be done to improve and it's disappointing to see that lessons have not been learned.

She said that some, including herself, had made suggestions around more community involvement so people could take ownership and get involved in keeping areas clean and to stream funding into those type of campaigns.

Cllr Tomás Sharkey said that no one would diminish any of their praise for the the work of Dundalk Tidy Towns. "They keep it going seven days a week and they don't ask for any praise, they're the heroes in the town", he commented.

Cllr Sharkey added that the IBAL report seems to have different criteria to Tidy Towns criteria and that the town has done better in the Tidy Towns awards in the last few years than in the IBAL survey.

He further added that they "have to make sure that one of the criteria for all funding and all the work and plans that we take, that we need a sustainable goals and a good clean environment is one".

Cllr Sharkey also said that he had mentioned nitrous oxide cannisters in the past that were showing up. He said they shouldn't be shocked about vapes being dropped or about alcohol cans being dumped but that they should be shocked when reading about nitrous oxide and other substances.

Cllr Marianne Butler said that it was very disheartening for Dundalk Tidy Towns to get a gold medal in September from the national Tidy Towns awards and to “turn around and get a kick in the face from IBAL".

Cllr Butler said that she was aware of the work that has gone into problem locations "and then you look at the report and they're throwing up North Gate Street – the street between Linenhall Street and Bridge Street, they call it the street with no name."

"That's definitely something that the council can address, put a name up on that street and give it an identity", she said, further adding that the Part 8 planning permission for the regeneration plans for that part of the town is something else they can do as a council.

Cllr Butler added that the location on the Castletown Road is the one problem location in the town that has never improved and that "it just needs to be shut down. Its consistently bad and badly managed."

She said that Section 254 licences are one way of addressing this issue, suggesting that they would only need to charge a "peppercorn amount" for the licences and "if its not working, we can turn around and say, we're not reissuing that licence."

Responding to the comments from the councillors, Senior Engineer Paddy Connolly said that he would pass on their queries and suggestions to the executive.