WITH the local election now less than a month away, the air-brushed images of candidates in the city and county wards went up on almost every lamppost across Limerick this week.
Under the Litter Pollution Act, posters can only be erected within 30 days of the polling date. And up they went this Wednesday with political hopefuls across the Mid-West wasting no time in getting their names out there ahead of polling day on May 23.
In fact, some candidates were so eager that they put posters up before this Wednesday’s deadline in the guise of public meetings and may now face litter fines.
However, in Newcastle West and Abbeyfeale, county councillors entered a “gentleman’s agreement” not to erect campaign posters within 50km zones in both towns.
At this Tuesday’s County Council meeting, outgoing councillors Francis Foley (FF), Michael Collins (FF), Jerome Scanlan (FG) and Liam Galvin (FG), asked all candidates to follow suit and keep both towns poster free.
Cllr Michael Collins said they needed to lead by example and he hoped that new candidates in Newcastle West and Abbeyfeale would be advised of the voluntary agreement.
Cllr Damien Riedy (FG) said he was not happy with the arrangement.
“Adare never had a problem with winning Tidy Towns competitions when there were elections on and campaign posters were up in the town. New candidates have an equal right to put posters up,” said Cllr Reidy.
Senior executive officer Eugene Griffin, reminded councillors that this was a voluntary agreement as there were no bye-laws to ban election posters.
