A NOTICE of motion has been submitted to City Council calling for the introduction of a Bye Law to prohibit “nuisance” leaflets through letterboxes between 10pm and 8am.
It was submitted by Cllr Jim Long, and seconded by Cllr John Gilligan, who complained that elderly people living alone are frightened when they hear a bang on their door in the middle of the night.
“Even when you ring the number on the leaflet that comes through your door, requesting you to leave out unwanted clothing for them to collect and if you want to tell them not to drop any more leaflets through your door,
you never get an answer,” observed Cllr Gilligan.
He added: “There should be investigations into clothing being sold on – as it is we have perfectly good shops in the city who take in clothes for the Third World countries and the poor – we should support our own”.
Supporting the motion, Sean Griffin, a member of the Environment Committee, said that he is a victim of these nuisance leaflets and recommended that some form of curtailment be introduced.
Cllr Orla McLoughlin said that leaflets from all sorts of sources are coming through letterboxes, but Cllr Tom Shortt asked – “what is a nuisance leaflet?
“The media have done some exposés of quasi criminal activity and local charities have been heavily hit – I’m worried that it may not be as simple as this motion states – I believe that we should be working towards the elimination of criminal behaviour in this area, if it exists”.
Making the point that between10pm and 8am, “no one, except one’s family should come into a property,” Cllr Kathleen Leddin supported the motion, and Cllr Maurice Quinlivan appealed to the public to use the Bring Banks for clothes located throughout the city.
“ In my own locality, there’s a leaflet dropped into the house every single morning. We should use our own charity shops in the city,” he told the meeting.
Cllr John Gilligan… ’elderly people are frightened’.
