About 300 tyres a day are being removed from locations around Dublin city centre where they are being stockpiled for Hallowe’en bonfires.
Dublin City Council said it was engaged in a game of “cat and mouse” in attempting to find tyres and remove them safely.
“Our environmental unit one morning before 10am last week had removed 300 tyres from two different locations and that’s every day at the office for the staff at the environmental unit,” said central area senior executive officer Eileen Gleeson.
The council expects to soon receive the results of a Garda audit of dozens of garages to ensure tyres are being disposed of properly. Councillors have accused businesses of allowing youths take tyres away before Hallowe’en to avoid the cost of their disposal.
Garages
“We need to be looking at the garages that are giving these tyres out to the youths because they’re certainly not going in and stealing the majority of them. They’re getting given out because the garages know that they’ll burn them and there’ll be less of a recycling thing for them to do,” said Sinn Féin councillor Janice Boylan.
Ms Gleeson said the council has also contacted private owners of certain sites in the city centre believed vulnerable to bonfires or storage of materials.
She said work was being carried out on buildings to make it difficult to store tyres in them, and she added that in the weekend before and the weekend of Hallowe’en staff would be available “round the clock” to remove material such as tyres and forklift pallets from stockpiles.
Dublin City Council said it hoped community groups would continue to provide events for teenagers “to divert them from the traditional behaviour that happens over Hallowe’en”.
Ms Gleeson said a big event would be held in Smithfield.
“One of the things we’re actually going to be doing is using the pallets that have been gathered up to make a ghost house experience in one of the complexes off Smithfield.”
