Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This morning, I raise the TidyTowns competition. It is great to see it back this year and that there are €1,000 grants available. Many groups were disappointed that the competition did not go ahead last year but that did not stop much of their work. Members worked within their 2 km and 5 km zones, and boy did we need them. As we heard this morning, there have been masks on the ground and overflowing bins. Cigarette butts are now emerging as one of the biggest issues, in addition to an increase in illegal dumping and dog litter. In that context, there is an award this year for those groups which did keep working.

We must encourage this new localism. We are going to have more staycations and local tourism. Along with my colleague, Councillor Siobhan Shovlin, and a colleague of the Deputy Leader, Councillor Howard Mahony, I launched a Dublin 15 tourism initiative last week because we want to see people coming into our area and preparations made for our outdoor summer. I spoke previously during our debate on period poverty regarding our lack of public toilets and what a disadvantage that is, as well as the need for bins and a strategy to complement our outdoor summer. I also spoke about casual trading bylaws and what we can do in that regard, as well as about supporting the organisation, Leave No Trace Ireland, which encourages responsibility regarding activities outdoors.

I raise the specific point that it is disappointing that only TidyTowns groups which were registered in 2017, 2018 and 2019 are eligible for the €1,000 grant this year. It includes a group of which I am a committee member, Blanchardstown TidyTowns. We have been active since 2018. We have done a colouring competition, been in the St. Patrick's Day parade, engaged companies in the area and we are of course doing our clean-ups every week. We secured funding from other sources, but we cannot now get that €1,000 grant because we were only set up in late 2018. We did not apply and register for 2019. Our year would have been 2020, but we could not do it then and now we are not eligible for this €1,000 grant. We need that money to get out and purchase equipment and make it a level playing field. We are trying to encourage people to get involved and we have seen an uplift in that regard. We should be encouraging people and capitalising on the goodwill of people who want to get involved.