46 tonnes of bonfire material removed from estates over Bank Holiday weekend
By Mary Dennehy
TALLAGHT’s community police and South Dublin County Council this week discovered a Halloween hoard of 800 pallets, which were stashed in two locations in Kilnamanagh and Bancroft.
Overall, more than 1,100 pallets have in recent days been removed from communities countywide, with 46 tonnes of waste collected over the Bank Holiday weekend alone.
Over 360 calls where made to the council in relation to bonfire stockpiling
In the run-up to Halloween night, the council received more than 360 calls in relation to stockpiling, with collections this week seeing the removal of beds, bed frames, mattresses, chairs and the hood of a truck from communities.
There has also been reports of 11 burnt out cars across the Tallaght and Clondalkin areas in recent weeks, with damage caused to an ESB pillar in one location.
Speaking with The Echo on Wednesday evening, Mary Maguire, Senior Executive Officer with the council, said: “The council has always recognised the difficulties that Halloween can cause for many communities through the illegal burning of waste on bonfires, the damage to local amenities, and the threat to property and local services.
“Our Public Realm operations units have been collecting bonfire material in a number of areas across the county since early October.
“All reports received advising of stockpiling of bonfire material were logged specifically for attention and all available resources were deployed to the preventative collections of bonfire materials prior to this Halloween.
“For operational safety reasons, contact was made early in the season with local gardai to arrange a joint approach to dealing with the removal of material.”
Bonfires were being constructed in close proximity to houses
According to Ms Maguire, priority locations targeted for collections included those where bonfires were being constructed in close proximity to houses, power lines, roadsides and transport routes.
The council, which took a cross departmental approach to Halloween this year, also contacted businesses.
“Our Waste Enforcement Section were in touch with over 150 businesses to advise them of their obligations regarding waste regulations, particularly relative to pallets and tyres”, Ms Maguire said.
“Notwithstanding the above regrettably over 1,100 pallets were collected from stockpiled material in recent days and tyres have also been included in the stockpiling and movement of “waste” to fuel bonfires.”
In the last few weeks, community police have been patrolling estates, and on the look-out for stashed bonfire material – which was removed by South Dublin County Council in a joint operation.
Speaking with The Echo on Halloween evening, Tallaght Superintendent Ian Lackey said: “Some 800 pallets were recovered in Kilnamanagh and Bancroft.
“They were hidden in trees.
“The community police in particular have been working in communities [in the run-up to Halloween] and have been out on patrols to prevent stockpiling.”
We will be doing our best
According to Super Lackey, community police also met with various community groups in relation to stockpiling and other Halloween-related concerns, and worked alongside the council in addressing issues and removing material.
In relation to fireworks, Supt Lackey said that by Wednesday evening there had been some small seizures for fireworks but nothing significant.
Speaking with The Echo just before it went to print on Wednesday, Supt Lackey said that activity across estates had started to “ramp” up.
“We’re quite busy at the moment, things started to ramp up around 3pm,” he said.
“We have every available resource out working tonight from 5pm.
“We will be doing our best to get out to as many areas as possible.
“It will be a busy night and there will be fires, but we will try and mitigate as best we can.”
The council confirmed that its clean-up, which will commence once the bonfires are out, normally lasts until the end of November.
