COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, October 09, 2023

QUESTION NO. 24

QUESTION: Councillor C. O'Connor

To ask the CEO to report to the members on his endeavours to deal with the growing challenge of dealing with Litter/Graffiti issues in the Council's area; will he appreciate the concern of many communities in the matter and make a statement? 

REPLY: 

There are currently five full time Litter Wardens employed by South Dublin County Council. All of the wardens will operate throughout the county but for operational purposes each Litter Warden is assigned an area within the county.

All incidents of littering and illegal dumping detected or reported are investigated and where evidence is found, appropriate enforcement action is taken. Increasingly it is found that no personal information relating to polluters is contained within the dumped material, with personal information having been removed or shredded.

As always, the Council is grateful for assistance and support from residents or others in their investigations of such incidents as they arise. In the absence of substantive evidence / witness statements and the presence of such witnesses in court it is not possible for us to bring successful prosecutions.

The South Dublin County Council Litter Management Plan 2020-2022 proposes to address the negative impacts of litter on our county, improve the quality of life and sense of wellbeing of our residents, and enhance our commercial and tourism potential through effective and efficient enforcement of legislation and regulation, management and maintenance of our public realm and communication, education, and awareness. Graffiti is managed in accordance with the provisions of the Litter Pollution Act 1997 as amended, and through the Council's supporting Annual Action Plan.

The Litter Management Plan 2020-2022 has been reviewed and the Draft replacement Litter Management Plan is currently being drafted. The public consultation where the members were invited to make submissions has just closed. The report on the public consultation will inform the content and reporting arrangements in respect of the new plan.

All reports of graffiti are dealt with by either public realm operations staff, the probation service graffiti removal crew or the specialist contractor appointed by the Council. We continue to take immediate action to remove or paint over offensive or politically motivated graffiti as a priority once a report is received.

SDCC has a Memorandum of Understanding with the ESB and a number of other utility companies, who have agreed to remove graffiti from their premises/assets once reported to them.

SDCC has used some anti-graffiti paints in a limited number of areas such as some boundary walls and bridges. These paints/coatings are used to form a layer over a surface to prevent graffiti from attaching to that surface. Graffiti can then be removed using power hoses from surfaces that are treated in such a way. The addition of the paint/coating does not prevent further graffiti; however, it does make the area affected easier to clean.

SDCC are currently procuring for a specialist contractor for graffiti removal from block and stone face walls and other specialist graffiti removal. 

Incentives that are currently in place include the Social Credits Scheme which supports and rewards community groups and individuals who take ownership of their environment and improve their local area by carrying out pro-environmental actions such as community clean-ups, maintenance of community gardens, graffiti removal, weeding of footpaths etc. The scheme is open to all community groups in South Dublin County's administrative area including:

The Social Credits Scheme is broken into 3 elements. Clean ups, Minor Landscape Scheme and Paint Enhancement Scheme.  Under the paint enhancement scheme the council provides paint to groups for the removal of graffiti or to carry out minor enhancement projects in their area.  We also supply materials including paint brushes and rollers.  Also, since 2018 South Dublin County Council has used traffic light boxes to exhibit high quality, creative artwork to the public. Traffic light control boxes make perfect canvases to showcase community art as they are always naturally located in high footfall – high traffic areas. The artwork can be enjoyed by pedestrians, cyclist, and motorists as they wait for the traffic light to turn green.

The Council’s Public Realm Section provides a variety of cleansing services across the County as follows –

  1. The servicing of on-street litter bins on a daily basis, the service consists of full-time operatives servicing litter bins on dedicated routes each day and this includes servicing of bins on Sundays and bank holidays.
  2. Daily cleaning of town and village centres in Tallaght, Clondalkin, Lucan, Palmerstown, Rathcoole, Rathfarnham, Templeogue and Walkinstown.  This service is also provided on Sundays and bank holidays.
  3. Daily cleaning of parks and servicing of park litter bins on a daily basis.
  4. The operation of mobile cleansing crews dealing with the cleaning and litter picking of parks and estate open spaces, including the response to illegal dumping and collections from Tidy Towns and community clean up events.
  5. The road sweeping service provided under contract to the Council by Oxigen Environmental Ltd.
  6. Graffiti removal which is provided by Public Realm painting staff and also by specialist contractor where chemical removal of graffiti is required.
  7. These services are considered to be priority services within Public Realm, and in this regard they are the first tasks to be assigned to staff each day.  What this means in effect is that where a regular operative is not available on a given day a replacement is assigned to their task as a priority, before any other tasks are assigned.   
  8. The total provision for all of the above services in the revenue budget is between €8m and €9m per year.

Information relevant to the provision of these services is included in the reports on the Litter Management Plan which are presented to the area committees on a twice-yearly basis.  Any issues raised by elected members through this process are taken into consideration and responded to in an appropriate manner.

Cleansing services are kept under constant review and as issues come to light through area committee business, membersnet and customer care items or through ongoing monitoring and supervision they are responded to in a timely manner.  Where certain changes or improvements to a service are required then these have always been acted on and this will continue to be the case.  For example the need to provide daily cleaning and servicing of litter bins in park locations which arose during the pandemic has now become a permanent feature of the cleaning services provided by this Council.

Issues such as the provision of additional street litter bins arise from time to time as area committee agenda items and where possible these are responded to in a positive manner with additional bins provided as requested by elected members.  Similarly where locations of persistent littering or illegal dumping are raised by elected members then these are factored in to the regular response by public realm operations, with illegal dumping incidents being responded to within a 24 hour time frame where possible.  As the county grows and new urban centres, public parks and residential areas become established then the services provided will have to expand accordingly.