Absolute Sh1t

John_Rambo

flanzer wrote: »

No modern city has the same problem

No modern city? What about Paris.

Not excusing it, but a lot of modern cities have this problem. I was in Biarritz and Kinsale recently. Much worse than Dublin... and it is disgusting.

Twee.

Merch wrote: »

So, i've a dog, its a pain if there isnt a bin but take it home if you have to, one bag inside another, its tough.

Yes, and I do. I'm just saying I don't like having to carry bags of **** around. I always pick it up.

Merch

Twee. wrote: »

Yes, and I do. I'm just saying I don't like having to carry bags of **** around. I always pick it up.

Thats unsuprising though, maybe someone likes it but I doubt many do.
If thats the reason people do it, then they shouldnt have a dog, because it comes with owning one.

Lawrence1895

adamski8 wrote: »

people in wheel chairs dont push themselves by the tyres you know. they use metal attached to the wheels

It might not stick to their hands, but it sticks to the wheels of the chair and everything ends up on the floor in the apartment, sticks to the carpet, etc.
No more details, but I'm looking after a guy in a wheelchair, ie. I know, these things happen

goz83

flanzer wrote: »

It's never policed properly. Dogs should be confiscated off their owners if caught. You wouldn't see it in any city in the world

Yeah....great solution. Dog poos on path, owner fails to clean poo from path, dog gets taken and put down for owner not cleaning poo. There is little excuse for it happening in the city, but in most parks, there are no bins, not even at the edge of the parks. I despise the thought ofhaving to carry a bag of hot dog sh!t around with me when walking my dogs. A bin at the entrance/exit would make lots of sense. Thankfully, my four legged friends prefer t do their dirty work in the bushes, where us two legged folk don't go. I swear i'm blessed with them, because I have a weak stomach.

[Jackass]

It's always one stretch of road where it happens. I used to work along Sandwith street and it was often commented on that it was the dog sh*t capital of the country. I mean absolutely smothered in the stuff.

But there's flats the length of that road, so maybe people with no garden bring their dog out to sh*t on the street and don't have the manners to clean it up??

Another stretch of road is along Clearmont Avenue and Serpentine Avenue in Sandymount, at least these people don't have an excuse for having no gardens, and I mean the place is covered in the stuff, just that particular stretch of road, and always the same, just like Sandwith Street.

It's gotten to the point where me and my girlfriend had a running joke about the crap along that road, one dog was easily identifyable by his grey sh*t, which is always the same whatever they are feeding him, but we call him the camoflage dog, because his stealth poos blend in with the footpath and after a day there always have a footprint in them...

Madness...

An Bhanríon

Ha ha, just spotted this.

Sorry guys, but try living in Paris. It's much worse than Dublin!

KTRIC

The worst I've seen is around Dublin 8 and 12. I lived in Rialto for a while and thought it was bad until I moved to Drimangh. I have a 10 minute walk through Drimnagh to the Luas every morning and its like playing f*cking hopscotch there is so much dogsh!te on the ground.

Last weekend I was out for a walk with a lady friend and on the Crumlin Road and you'd swear a dog blew up there was that much sh!te on the ground near the shopping center. :mad:

bobin fudge

blessington street d1 is pretty impressive:eek:

skeg16

KTRIC wrote: »

The worst I've seen is around Dublin 8 and 12. I lived in Rialto for a while and thought it was bad until I moved to Drimangh. I have a 10 minute walk through Drimnagh to the Luas every morning and its like playing f*cking hopscotch there is so much dogsh!te on the ground.

Last weekend I was out for a walk with a lady friend and on the Crumlin Road and you'd swear a dog blew up there was that much sh!te on the ground near the shopping center. :mad:

Poor lad, you have to worry about dog sh1te on the paths aswel as living in Drimangh......God Speed

KTRIC

skeg16 wrote: »

Poor lad, you have to worry about dog sh1te on the paths aswel as living in Drimangh......God Speed

Its like God hates me

I live out in Clondalkin, and its horse sh!t out here on the footpath you have to avoid.

When I'm jogging it's like doing that tyre training when dodging it.

Your right OP, overall it is disgusting.

skeg16

Is that what I think it is???? (yes, yes, I am that bored in work that I went looking for dog sh1t on Sandwith St)

skeg16

Hi Guys/Gals,

I know this thread is dead in the water but I just thought id follow up with the reply I got from Cllr. Kieran Binchy. To be fair he gave a full and frank reply and I believe him when he says things are being/trying to be done. But I think at the end of the day unless a warden/guard catches this crime in the act and has eye witnesses/proof there is nothing that can be done

Dear x,

Thank you for your email. My apologies for not answering sooner but I wanted to give you a full answer so I was waiting till I had a bit of spare time. You would not believe the amount of queries and complaints that I get about dog dirt, so I am (reluctantly) turning into a bit of an expert on it. And I should make it clear that I don't yet have a satisfactory solution. Instead I'll give you an overview of what the city is trying to do to tackle this, and what seems to be working and what isn't. I should mention that I live on Lime St, do a clinic on Pearse St, and walk around that area on a regular basis, so I know what you are talking about. Since becoming a Councillor most of the complaints on the topic have been in reference to Portobello (residential streets generally), Sandymount Promenade, Dodder walkway (various locations), South Wall, and Ringsend (Thorncastle St, Bridge St etc), but it is a problem across the city.

1. The punitive approach
Litter wardens have the power and responsibility for fining the owners of dogs who leave their faeces behind (under Section 22 of the Litter Pollution Act). In order to successfully fine a person they must have a case that would stack up in court, with full proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In practice this would mean eye-witness evidence of an actual act of faeces being deposited and not picked up.

This is one of the reasons both dog dirt and casual littering offences are so rarely prosecuted. From what I see with litter fines generally, virtually no one is ever fined for dropping a sweet wrapper - almost all of our successful prosecutions are for full bags of household litter being left in a public place. This is because the number of litter wardens which would be needed to actually catch people in the act and have evidence would be impractically large. The same applies to dogs - the chances of a warden being in the right place at the right time is so low as to be negligible. And having a warden present would in all likelihood not lead to offences being detected - it would lead to dog owners seeing the warden and making sure the dog didn't do anything until out of sight of the warden. Which goes some of the way towards explaining why there were only 3 (yes, 3), fines collected for dog fouling between 2007 and 2011 by Dublin City Council.

Dog wardens do not have a direct role in tackling dog dirt, but they do indirectly deal with it by keeping strays and untended/uncontrolled dogs off the streets.

The idea of using CCTV was mooted. Dublin City Council's own CCTV system is used for monitoring traffic and cannot be used to monitor individuals for other purposes. I suppose in theory where a litter warden believes that an offence was committed they could ask a business owner whose CCTV covers the spot for video, but the time and money that would be involved in trying to prosecute a dog owner on the basis of CCTV footage would be extremely high. I could make representations to the litter section if anyone thought this was a real option, but at first glance seems cumbersome.

As a Council we have made a representation to the Minister for the Environment for an amendment to the litter Acts which would combine the punitive element with the encouragement/socialisation element considered below, asking it to be an offence for someone to be in control of a dog in public without a poop-scoop on their person. Litter wardens could fine any dog owner who didn't carry one, which would mean almost all would carry one. There would be no guarantee (beyond the current offence under Section 22) that they would use it, but it would both make them way more likely to use it and as no one would have an excuse for not picking up after their dog it would create a general positive peer/social pressure to clean up after one's dog. It wouldn't solve the problem, but it might change habits and attitudes and thereby change how certain dog owners act.

I should mention however that if someone is asked for their name and address, a litter warden has no way of knowing whether it is true or not. He can call a Garda to get the Garda to verify their identity, which would be an option if they refuse to give a name and address or if they give one that is obviously fake. It is not fatal to the punitive approach, but adds another administrative weakness.

2. The cleaning approach
We are currently negotiating the overall budget for the city, and expect to be able to increase the funding for street cleaning to around €32 million. I have to admit to being surprised when I first saw the figure, but I gather that in the last 5 years or so it was cut from €38 million (2008) to around €29 million (2012) - I am relatively new to the Council so I do need to re-check the 2008 figure. For that, we create a hierarchy of streets. The commercial ones get cleaned every day (including footpaths). Residential streets get cleaned 4 times a year. There are categories in between - more information is available here - http://www.dublincity.ie/WaterWasteEnvironment/Waste/Pages/SS.aspx
You can check any street here - http://www.dublincity.ie/StreetSweeping/

More cleaning is definitely part of the answer.

3. The preventative approach
For a while the city was making free scooper bags available at dispensers with special bins on a pilot basis a few years ago, but it was not a success. I gather there was no reduction in dog dirt in the area they were piloted it, (and additional illegal dumping took place at the bins). It may have been that those who would have brought their own bag and been diligent relied on the free ones, but those who wouldn't have brought their own bags wouldn't go find a nearby dispenser either. It was not considered a success and was not made permanent. The manager in our area summarised it as - Despite Dublin City Council providing free poop-scoops, erecting anti-dog fouling signs and installing approx 100 dog bins throughout the city, approx 100 complaints were still received in Customer Services through the litter hotline in 2009 and 2010.

4. The social pressure approach
As part of the earlier pilot above, signs stating that dog fouling is prohibited were erected. Again, the effect was minimal if any. However, I don't believe we will see real change until allowing your dog to defecate in the street is seeing for what it is, a dirty negligent act that puts children's health at risk, that degrades the environment, and that lowers the quality of life for all users of the public realm. If people are made to realise that it is the social equivalent of randomly dropping a large lump of faeces outside someone's front door, we might see some progress. Public opinion, peer pressure and social norms can actually have a strong effect. So signs telling people about fines might not be as effective as signs telling them that it is dirty and dangerous.

5. The Mixed Approach - a new pilot
The Council is currently trying a new approach that uses some of what I have described above in a few neighbourhoods across the city. There are new street signs with a positive message "Bag the Poo - Any Bin will do", which also appears on street bins. There are new cleaning machines with a vacuum specifically designed for specifically cleaning up dog dirt. More details are below. We haven't yet had an evaluation of whether it is considered a success or not.

(Without wanting to overcomplicate it, there is also the problem that bins in parks are emptied by the parks section and bins on streets by the bin section and both have been known to voice various objections to having to empty bins with loose dog dirt in them. I understand that both now accept that it is in their job description...)

Having said all that, there must be other means we can use to tackle this. I will raise the Pearse St/Sandwith St area with the litter warden and the environmental officer for that area, and I will ask that the dog dirt problem be focussed on when street cleaning is taking place. However if you or anyone on boards.ie has cost-effective proposals for the more general city-wide problem, I am more than happy to hear them and to work to get them implemented if it seems that they will be effective.

Please see below a question I submitted on the topic, and a summary of the current pilot programme.

Thanks again for the email. Feel free to post my reply on boards.ie if you are posting there.

Kind regards,

Cllr. Kieran Binch

_blank_

That's an excellent reply you got there.

Fair play to the Cllr, and to you for posting that here.

I liked this line

You would not believe the amount of queries and complaints that I get about dog dirt, so I am (reluctantly) turning into a bit of an expert on it

I'd vote for him if he wasn't a blueshirt. :pac: