According to PosterFree.ie not one local electoral candidate in the Dublin area has pledged to not erect posters during this year’s local elections.
The campaign has been a great success so far with 122 towns and 50 candidates nationwide agreeing to go poster-free.
According to the campaign, in the 2014 local elections, 611,000 posters were erected with a combined cost of €3m.
The posters covered the equivalent area of 23 Croke Parks and 366 tonnes of Co2 was produced.
After 30 days of canvassing, the majority of the posters were sent to landfill, according to PosterFree.ie.
Although local candidates from many counties have agreed to go poster-free this year, as of time of print, not one candidate in Dublin has joined the movement.
Mary Hanafin, local councillor for the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown area, told Dublin Gazette: “I will of course honour the request of the towns and villages who do not want posters but I will be erecting posters elsewhere.”
“I believe they add to the democratic process as they are a visible sign that an election is taking place. I will make an effort to source posters which are not plastic based but will withstand wind and rain. I will also be restricting the numbers of posters I use.”
Fine Gael local councillor John Kennedy has voiced his concern about the posters saying that many candidates find the arduous task of putting up and taking down posters a turn off.
“In fact, this task may be putting people off running for election given the extra campaign stress this task adds.”
“The fact is that where nearly every candidate is putting up posters there is no real particular competitive advantage to having them, yet a disadvantage would arise for any candidate deciding not to put them up,” he says.
Out of the 122 towns in the country that have pledged to not allow posters being erected during election time, Blackrock, Dalkey, Monkstown and Shankill are among those in the DLR area vowing to go poster-free.
