COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF RATHFARNHAM AREA COMMITTEE

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

QUESTION NO. 6

QUESTION: Councillor J. Lahart

"To ask the Manager what steps are being taken to deal with the re-emerging problem of graffitti in the Ratfarnham area and to outline details of the written communications between utility companies and the Council in this respect. Can the Mnager also outline the fines imposed to date on utility companies where breaches have occurred and whether any written agreements have been entered into with these companies?"

REPLY:

The Council's Graffiti Removal Crew, supplemented by a partnership with the Probation Services remove graffiti from public property following initial inspection and referral by the local Litter Warden.  Graffiti on private property is the responsibility of the land owner/occupier and Wardens may take enforcement action under the Litter Pollution Act as necessary.

A series of meetings have taken place with utilities companies regarding graffiti responses.  The inaugural meeting was held in June 2008 and resulted in commitments from all parties to tackle graffiti within the scope of their responsibilities and facilities.  This meeting was attended by representatives of Dublin Bus, ESB and An Post.  It was agreed that, in the absence of formal agreement, streamlined, direct reporting of graffiti to the utilities companies would be accompanied by responses within specific timeframes outside planned maintenance inspections/programmes and this was replicated with eircom and the then NTL.  It was further agreed that a draft protocol between the Council and the ESB to tackle graffiti would be prepared by the ESB Environmental Manager in conjunction with the Council.  This process was hampered by the retirement and reassignment of staff but was resurrected in August 2010 and a series of meetings have taken place between ESB personnel and staff from this Council as well as Dublin City Council and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council to produce a final draft agreement on the ESB responses to litter and graffiti.  Sign-off on this agreement is now awaited from ESB at which stage it will be circulated to the Elected Members and it is intended that similar agreements will then be rolled out to other agencies.

Underpinning all arrangements is the responsibilities utilities companies have under section 19 of the Litter Pollution Act, and this continues to be the case with no fines required to be issued to date this year.  However, if the Members or the public are aware of specific locations where utility company facilities are suffering from graffiti, they should be reported to the local Litter warden forthwith and arrangements will be made to have the graffiti removed or appropriate enforcement action will be taken.