THE beginning of June brought the fine weather that had eluded us so far this year. You’d feel terribly sorry for all the Junior and Leaving Cert students who are under such pressure while the rest of us are enjoying the great outdoors.
Well, for the most part we are. Good weather in Ireland often means a sudden increase in anti-social behaviour on our streets, in our parks and on our beaches.
The sun brings these idiots out from under the rocks. No longer confined to their usual habitats, they are there for all to see – in their milky chested, tattooed glory – when the temperature rises.
The sad reality is that alcohol fuelled violence continues to be a feature of Irish summers in popular public places.
Apart from posing a danger to our safety, there is also a major litter problem created when these lowlife thugs come out to play. And while Dublin is blessed with an abundance of great beaches – albeit with varying water quality – some of them often resemble the aftermath of a plane crash the morning after a hot day.
In fairness to Dublin’s local authorities, they seem to be pulling out all the stops to maintain their beach cleaning programmes, despite considerable pressure on budgets. It must be a thankless job, having to clean up after the slobs who don’t give a damn about the mess they leave behind.
But our councils must make it easier for people to dispose of their litter responsibly by increasing the amount of bins on our beaches. On busy days the few bins available are overflowing with rubbish. In an ideal world people would take their litter home with them but that doesn’t seem to be the norm in this country.
It would also be great to see more litter wardens patrolling our beaches on busy summer days. The threat of receiving on the spot fines would certainly help concentrate minds.
To combat anti-social behaviour, it might also be an idea to deploy mounted police units on our beaches.
With proper enforcement and deterrents in place, our parks and beaches can be enjoyed to the max this summer. Then all we’d need is for the good weather to continue.
And for the sake of all our young people doing their exams this week, let’s keep our fingers crossed that there will be plenty more sunny days to enjoy once these difficult few weeks are behind them.