Local authorities are one of the worst polluters of our local environment.

They have the responsibility of maintaining our environment.

They also have the responsibilty of ensuring that litter and other pollutants don’t ruin the enviornment in which we live.

Why, then, are the Local Authorities/Councils themselves one of the biggest contributors to the litter problem?

With Health & Safety, local authorities have to put up adequate signage before, during and after road works have taken place.

I realise that.

What I fail to accept is the ‘abandonment’ of signage long after the job is done!

It’s scandalous ….. cones, plastic warning signs, reems of plastic warning tape, lengths of wood that signs used to be attached to and the dreaded cable tie litter the high ways and by ways of our country!

That bloody cable tie is everywhere!

It’s on pieces of wood, on the reamains of plastic signage and on various other poles (after the election material has been pulled down).

The law states that election candidates must have their posters down within a specific time after the elction ….. but what about the plastic cable tie?

Take that too you polluter!

Permanently Temporary!

Colour code the cable ties for the different parties etc. for ease of identification:

Fianna Fáil: Brown – in honour of the good old ‘brown envelope’.

Fianna Gael: White – cos they make themselves so clean and chaste looking in opposition!

The Greens: Grey – cos they are no longer black and white about their policies ….. now that they are sleeping with the devil.

PD’s: Fluorescent Yellow – perhaps someone will take notice of the poster, take pity on them and they’ll get at least one vote in the next election.

Sinn Féin: Green and Red – in honour of the ever growing closeness between Ireland and Britain, as demonstrated to us by Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley …. the now infamous ‘Chuckle Brothers!

I’d give Finian McGrath the former teacher, turned turncoat a special colour ….. a ‘tar and feather’ mix.

Jackie Healy-Rae: He’d have to get a yellow cable tie …. to match all his plant hire machinery that’s dotted on every road in Kerry.

(If you have a colour and a politician mix that you think would go well together ….. feel free to let us know!)

Another thing ……………. why don’t councils clean water tables anymore?

They only respond to blocked drains with a big bucketed digger after the fact!

The worker with a shovel, malined and all that he was, was still able to do a more effective job cleaning out drains.

Now we have four guys standing around as the guy in the digger takes big scelps out of the drain.

That’s progress for you!