Less than 10% of litter and illegal dumping complaints received by Clare County Council this year have resulted in fines.
Analysis by Clare FM reveals over 800 complaints have been made in relation to litter and illegal dumping in this county since the beginning of the year.
Clare County Council’s Waste Enforcement Team, which is tasked with “inspecting and reporting on litter blackspots” in the county, received 814 complaints pertaining to littering and illegal dumping from January to August of this year.
This is 98 more than the 716 recorded in the same period last year which indicates a rise of 7%.
More complaints were made in May than in any other month of the year so far with 157 being lodged in that month which is higher than the combined total of 141 for the months of July and August.
Under the Litter Pollution Act of 1997, the offence of littering carries an on-the-spot fine of €150.
However, just 53 fines for littering have been issued so far this year.
This means that of the 814 littering and illegal dumping complaints recorded by the local authority’s Complaints Management System so far this year, just 7% of them have resulted in fines.
Clare County Council have said its Waste Enforcement Team “continue to respond to illegal dumping complaints” while all open complaints are “under investigation and relevant enforcement actions are underway”.
