Fingal Briefs: Reining in election posters, and building four-bed homes

The posters question

After a lengthy debate, Fingal county councillors at their December monthly meeting voted to write to two ministers to tell them the council would take part in any process to set up designated areas for electoral posters.

The Electoral Commission is supposed to look at whether, during elections, there should be limits on the number of posters candidates can put up, and where they can do that, according to the Programme for Government.

At the 11 December meeting, Green Party Councillor David Healy proposed the motion to write to ministers with responsibility for local government and electoral reform.

“We have a long-standing wish amongst our communities to be spared the long-standing blight of posters all over our landscape,” said Healy, making his pitch to the chamber.

Most other European countries have organised postering facilities, parts of towns or specific billboards, shared by candidates to advertise in, he said. Timing is tight for next June’s local elections, he said, but not too tight.

“I suppose it is us demonstrating our commitment to reducing the appalling waste of resources and the blight on the landscape that the posters constitute,” he said.

Ahead of the vote, several councillors spoke against the motion. It would disadvantage newer candidates, said several councillors, and might impact voter turnout if residents don’t realise when there’s an election on.

Postering can be excessive sometimes, but councillors should be careful not to throw out some of the advantages of the system as it is, said Labour Party Councillor Brian McDonagh.

“When there’s an election in Ireland, you know there’s an election in Ireland,” said McDonagh – a point echoed by several other councillors.

Sinn Féin’s Angela Donnelly said she strongly disagreed with the motion too. If they chose specific areas to poster, people who don’t pass by those might be oblivious to an election, she said.

Howard Mahony, a Fianna Fáil councillor, spoke in favour of the motion.

“I think something has to be done finally, we have to be responsible,” Mahony said. He disagreed with the idea that people wouldn’t know there was an election, he said.

“It’s our job to let people know there’s an election on. There’s a load of other ways of doing it. Leafleting, canvassing, shops, you know, wrapping your car whatever you do, without polluting the environment,” he said.

Robert O’Donoghue of Labour said he would like to see a detailed proposal, and that there does have to be a better way.

But getting rid of posters, or minimising them, does massively disadvantage non-incumbants, O’Donoghue said. It’s not just hearsay, he said, quoting from academic research on Irish elections, which said that name recognition is behind that advantage.

Green Party Councillor Ian Carey said he thinks any new rules could address concerns about incumbents or less awareness of elections.

Labour’s Mary McCamley wondered who would designate areas. “If it was me I would be saying, ‘I want the designated area in my estate.’”

Putting up the posters is a tradition, she says, and it’s a talking point.

“I put some of mine upside down and people used to talk about them all the time. Because they were upside down. They’d say, ‘Mary, did you know your poster’s upside down?’” she says.

Councillors voted 13 in favour of the motion, with 10 against, with no abstentions.

In search of four-bed homes

People waiting for four-bed social homes have to wait for three, four or five years longer than those waiting for smaller homes, said Labour Councillor Brendan Ryan, at Fingal’s monthly council meeting on 11 December,

Councillors recently had a briefing with the Land Development Agency about the big developments it has planned in Fingal.

They talked about 817 homes at Castlelands in Balbriggan, 345 homes in Hacketstown, he said. “And not one four-bedroom unit in all of that totality.”

Ryan called on the chief executive to add more four-bed homes to planned future housing developments – and to review policy so that those waiting for four-bed social homes could still be offered three-beds even if they’re not ideal.

“I think people are capable of surviving it, if they so wish to be allocated a three-bedroom, if their need is for four,” he said.