Dominic Hannigan (Labour)

The posters go missing from the poles and reappear six weeks after the election down culverts, in rivers, on roads and all over the place. Luckily we have a very good working relationship with the local litter authorities which are aware of the problem. Any time a poster goes missing from one of our poles, we inform the local authority and, in this way, it recognises we are doing our best to ensure the posters are accounted for. Over the past five years, I probably had to pay the guts of €1,000 in fines because of missing posters. We therefore need some arrangement that will make it clear whether candidates have tried to obey the law and take their posters down within seven days of the election. Some leeway should be given regarding the rogue posters that appear every now and then. Will the Minister of State think about this?

The proposed section 12B states the spending period ends on polling day of the election. If somebody is to pay for the removal of the posters, it will constitute spending after the date of the election. Will the Minister of State clarify whether this would be independent of the electoral spend? More and more candidates, particularly after elections when people might be a bit glum if they were not successful, find it easier to buy in the removal of posters as opposed to getting their teams to take them down. Often, teams are completely wrecked by the time the count is over.