Motion on Poster Ban passed at DCC

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | feature

Wednesday May 24, 2006 15:45

by Joan Collins, Sean Ryan, RobbieS, Seedot

Illegal posters

Based on the 1997 litter act, the policy of the Dublin City Council to ban all posters of public meetings has met much resistance over the last two years. The ban, which affected many campaigns was the reason the IAWM changed Stop Bush Posters to election posters in 2005 and spurred a Protest at Dublin City Council over the ban on advertising a Rossport 5 march in sept 2005. In November, Joan Collins first proposed a motion at Dublin City Council to change this policy.

At each subsequent City Council meeting attempts were made to get this motion on the agenda with protests starting back in December. The announcement of the January protest also pointed out DCC was breaking its own ban while the labour youth notice outlined the legal position of the 1997 litter act and queried its use to ban notices of public meetings. Fears over the anti-democratic nature of the ban seemed to be realised in February when DCC attempted to prevent a Finglas Bin Tax meeting by threatening the venue for the meeting on the basis of the ban. In February the Campaign for Free Speech in Dublin was founded to oppose the ban while an article in Phoenix magazine made the same points as the January posts to Indymedia. As resistance stepped up, activists started using stencils instead of posters and more protests were held at each city council meeting and at the mansion house. Finally, seven months after the motion proposed by Joan Collins and seconded by Dessie Ellis was initially tabled and more than two years after the Assistant County Manager, Owen Keegan decided that posters were to be banned, the Dublin City Council seems to have reversed this undemocratic ban

Motion proposed by Cllr Joan Collins, seconded by Cllr Dessie Ellis

"This Council meeting instructs the relevent bodies in DCC to follow these procedures in relation to postering and section 19 of the Litter Pollution Act 1997 as amended by section 56 of the protection of the Enviroment Act 2003.
That future requests from Campaigns/Groups/Political partys/residents associations etc to exhibit posters to advertise for public meetings/events in the City, be granted under section 19(1) ie by request in writing. permission be granted by written reply from DCC accompanied with a letter of conditions in accordance to section 19(1) and 19 (7) ie must have a name and contact no/address, and posters must be removed within 7 days of the event. This letter of condition should clearly spell out what DCC powers are under the Litter Act if the conditions under section 19(1) and 19(7) are not complied with.
If any Campaign/Group/Political party/Residence association do not comply with DCC conditions under the Act, the issue will be put on the agenda of the Environment and Engineering strategic policy committee,"

This motion was passed unanimously tonight at DCC meeting, the only dissenting voice been that of Cllr Stafford FF

The blanket ban was being implemented by the DCC using the bylaws and then refusing permission to any one who applied and in the meantime removing posters with immediate effect when put up as they were branded as "litter" by DCC because permission was not given. Disgracefully the Anti Bin tax, Shell to Sea, Anti War, political meetings, missing persons posters, public meetings ie the McBrearity meeting in the mansion house on corruption in the Guards, circus advertisement etc , residents meetings were all effected by this "policy of DCC". The ICCL, the campaign for free speech in dublin, political groups, the homeless campaign "the homeless are revolting" and individuals who pressurised cllrs to vote with the motion should be congratulated. We have now to see how DCC will respond to the vote on DCC tonight. In effect all requests to poster should be automatically given permission to poster. Obviously I do not believe that we should have to ask for permission but the bylaws were been used by DCC to ban the right to free speech and assembly which is in breach of article 10 of the European convention and the Irish constitution, and the bylaws themselves. This will be tested I am sure by many groups in Dublin City.