Election poster ban in place in over 150 towns

April 24th, 2019

A voluntary ban on election posters is
now in place in over 150 towns across the country following calls for the
elimination of waste generated from candidacy posters.

Launched less than two months ago, the Poster Free campaign garnered significant
public support with 101
towns banning election posters from their towns earlier in March.

The towns
and areas to impose the voluntarily ban include municipalities in counties
Cork, Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Donegal.

The
campaign organisers reiterated their wish to see a nationwide ban on election
posters, with over 90 political candidates also
committing to go poster free.

The
European and Local Elections take place on 24 May, with candidates expected to erect
half a million posters on telephone poles and lamp posts across the country.

The campaign, which is strongly supported
by local Tidy Towns groups, said that the positive response to its initiative
is an indication of people’s frustration with the accumulation of waste
generated from candidates’ publicity posters.

In 2014,
just over 2000 candidates ran for 750 seats in the local elections, erecting
over 600,000 posters, the equivalent of 23 Croke Parks.

Those
posters have reportedly produced 360 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), the same
amount generated if an average car drove non-stop for 592 days. A similar
number expected to be distributed this May during both local and European
elections.

Promotional
posters can also pose a threat to public safety by covering road
signage leading to motorway accidents. Cyclists have also complained about
improperly positioned posters that often block their path and put their lives
in danger.

Under the country’s anti-litter legislations including the
Litter Pollution Act of 1997, endangering public safety by inappropriately
positioning promotional posters is an offence. 

Public outcry against posters first rose to prominence in the lead up to the Eight Amendment referendum where a Claire Byrne Live/Amarach Research poll found that 74 per cent of people want referendum posters to be banned.

Karen Doyle, an Independent local election
candidate running in Cobh where the new voluntarily ban is now in place,
expressed her satisfaction about the increased number of poster-free areas.

 “With
all the different parties and individuals trying to get their face out there on
every second pole the entire place was becoming very littered leading to a type
of poster fatigue,” she told The
Green News.

Green Party Senator Grace O’Sullivan put down an
amendment to the Government’s European Parliament Elections (Amendment) Bill
2019 to restrict the use of posters to designated public spaces only. The amendment was ruled out of order .

Almost all EU countries instead limit posters to
designated areas, administered by their local authorities, and often dismantle
them outside of election time.

A new website – www.candidates.ie
– has been launched by NoteCloud, a technology company in Tralee, to make it
easier for voters to find out about the candidates contesting the elections.

NoteCloud founder Brian Stephenson said: “We are
involved in a number of environment and community clean-up projects locally and
the issue of election posters has been raised more than once.

“We decided to try to solve this by building a user-friendly online directory and inviting candidates to create profiles and give a little info about themselves and their ideas,” he added.

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