The Galway City Council must introduce a rota system in order to combat over flowing bins in the city centre according to a Galway city councillor.
Fianna Fáil councillor Ollie Crowe says the sight of refuse lying on the ground is unacceptable and it is clear that not enough resources are committed to public management refuse services.
Cllr Crowe said; "I realise that tremendous work is being carried out by the Galway City Council crews at 5am every morning, however, it is very clear to me that this is simply not sufficient to ensure that our city streets are kept clean at all times throughout the day.
"In recent weeks I have received numerous representations on the issue of overflowing public bins on our city streets and in particular during busy and festive occasions. Once these bins reach capacity, the litter is left on top of and adjacent to the containers causing an unsightly buildup of refuse in our city centre and elsewhere which is often dispersed further by weather conditions and wildlife.
"The Galway City Council must increase funding to expand our public refuse management services and must continue the rollout of smart and solar powered bin solutions which are able to compact refuse automatically and notify management when they are almost full leading to high levels of efficiency. The council must introduce a rota system for heavily used areas of the city and furthermore, must anticipate and provide for high traffic occasions such as Bank Holiday weekends and other festivities."
Highlighting the increased exposure Galway is expected to receive because of the designation of European Capital of Culture for 2020, the Galway city east councillor says now is the time to act.
"The cleanliness and presentation of our beautiful city is of the utmost importance to our economic and social efforts as we head into the next decade. Over the coming two years Galway will attract a great deal of international press, television, and social media coverage and I am campaigning right now to ensure that we, as a city, have our best foot forward.
"It is simply unacceptable that visitors and tourists arriving in Eyre Square at any time of the day or night would be greeted by overflowing bins and refuse lying on the ground. With Galway 2020 upon us we must clean up our act now."
