WITH a little under 12 months to go until the scramble for local authority seats begins, Minister John Gormley has sent a chill down the spine of several sitting and intending candidates, with plans to clamp down on a vital face-recognition tool - election posters.
Perhaps remembering the stand-off when he and Justice Minister Michael McDowell fought for control of a key lamp post in Ranelagh, John Gormley is preparing to impose strict new controls on posters and the litter they can cause.
The Environment Minister has already fallen foul of Mayo politicians in recent weeks over his opposition to sections of both the current County Development Plan and the Castlebar and Environs Development Plan. Proposals to restrict what many consider to be an essential canvassing mechanism are likely to add insult to injury in Mayo.
The ministerial intervention in the local planning process has come at a particularly sensitive time - as rural housing is likely to be a hot topic in the run up to June ’09. Such is the opposition to the minister’s direction on the issue that councillors are willing to run the risk of having the authority abolished if they do not compromise.
The minister has already been accused of being “a Green horn”, but the councillor who coined that phrase had a rare moment of agreement with Minister Gormley on the posters issue.
Castlebar’s Cllr Johnny Mee said he would fully back the proposed poster cull.
“In this case, I would have to agree there are far too many election posters. Two or three on one poll is taking things a bit too far. As good looking as Johnny Mee is, nobody wants to be looking at him beaming down from every lamp post in the area! Some people go to town altogether on the posters and we even have candidates who use the same photos since they were elected. I’m not so sure that face recognition is helped by that.”
The Labour councillor went on to say that bigger parties would always gain something of an unfair advantage in the poster wars.
“The Independents and the smaller parties haven’t got the funds anyway to be festooning every street corner. It’s time there was a change and I would suggest the big parties came together to form some kind of agreement.”
In an effort to reduce pollution and littering, Minister Gormley has launched a public consultation process to consider election posters.
Some of the ideas put forward include restricting the locations where posters can be displayed, introducing a new code of practice and bringing in powers for local authorities. Currently, election and referendum posters are exempt from the Litter Pollution Act until seven days after polling.
"This is an opportunity for all concerned with this issue to make their views known. I will consider all comments carefully before finalising my proposals and bringing these to the Government in due course," said the minister. Submissions can be made to the Department of the Environment before September 15 next.
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