The issue of what happens once illegal dumping is reported to the council raised its head at this week’s monthly meeting of the Castlebar electoral area committee. Fine Gael Councillor Henry Kenny brought up the issue asking: “I have reported illegal dumping myself on a number of occasions, I’d just like to know what the follow up is on this dumping, do they come along and remove the materials that are dumped and what do they do after to investigate who is doing the dumping?” Cllr Kenny’s enquiry was backed up by Labour party Cllr Johnny Mee who told the meeting, “I agree with Cllr Kenny, there is an ongoing problem in this area where rubbish is just being dumped by people in the town. It’s a sad sight and it’s an appalling behaviour that has to be clamped down on by the council and the public in general.”
Responding to the question director of services for Castlebar Seamus Granahan told the meeting, “There are a number of full time enforcement officers in the county. All reports of illegal dumping are logged and followed up on. We’ve had a number of successes in courts recently where people have received large fines after being detected dumping illegally. We now have mobile CCTV cameras which we are using to detect people who are engaged in this activity. People are, though, getting wise to not leaving any correspondence in their rubbish so it makes them hard to track down, but illegal dumping is a priority of this council.”
