Dublin City Council must undertake a complete review of its dog fouling policy, says Fianna Fail councillor for Finglas-Ballymun Keith Connolly.
Connolly was speaking after figures released to him by the council show that just 27 fines have been issued by the council for dog fouling in the past five years.
In 2021 and 2019 zero fines were handed out across the city while in 2018 and 2020 and combined six fines were issued.
The most amount of fines occurred in 2017 when 21 were recorded in total.
“If you discount the South Central area in 2017, just eight dog fouling fines have been issued by Dublin City Council in the past five years,” Connolly says.
“This is an embarrassingly low figure for the largest local authority in the country.
“What is very clear is that the current policy isn’t working and investment is needed in dog and litter wardens to help with enforcement.”
Connolly says that various deterrents should be explored including CCTV.
“The use of CCTV should also be examined to try and catch culprits who are not cleaning up after their dogs,” he says.