I have not received any communication from Mr. Lynch but he has apparently replied to some others. Based on what I have seen, I make the following observations.
Mr. Lynch states that the Cork County Council is aware of the issue of dog fouling. That’s not surprising since the local councilors have stated that they have been raising the subject for years. He also says that they are trying to deal with it but he doesn’t explain what those attempts entail. Apart from providing ‘doggie bags’, I haven’t seen evidence of any efforts.
He further states that “we have not had much success in relation to fining those dog owners who refuse to clean up after their pets – it is not possible for the Council’s Warden to issue a litter fine for this unless they can be satisfied that they can positively identify the owner of the dog.”
Again, he doesn’t explain what efforts they have made to find the dogs or their owners but I would argue that if there was a willingness to tackle this issue then it would be possible to identify some of these dog owners. Dogs are roaming the town freely without being on a lead and many of them seem to have collars. There is not too much investigative expertise required to locate these owners.
He says that “This is not just an issue in Cobh – I am aware from talking to my colleagues in the Environment Department of the County Council that this is an issue across the entire county and beyond.” He is absolutely right. In the UK, they reckon that there are between 6 and 7 million dogs producing about 1,000 tonnes of crap every day. But I’m only interested in Cobh and I think it is possible to improve the situation here. Mr. Lynch has confirmed that there is no Litter Management Plan. But he hopes “that the County Council will be in a position over the next few months to prepare a new Plan which would set out our intentions in relation to litter control generally as well as the specific issue of dog fouling”.
That means that we could be at the end of another tourist season before we even see sight of a plan. Without a plan, there will be no action so we can anticipate another build-up of dog crap this summer.
He is right when he says that dog owners should take responsibility for the actions of their own pets. In an ideal world, they would, and every driver would be insured, nobody would park on double yellow lines and there would be no such thing as shoplifting.
But we don’t live in an ideal world and until we do, we need the Council to do its’ job.