A request to have this year's Tidy Towns competition adjudication delayed until after election posters have been taken down has been made to the Department of Rural Affairs.
While towns like Glaslough and Emyvale in Monaghan, and Belturbet in Cavan have banned the erection of posters, others in the Northern Sound region have allowed them to be put up in the run-up to the local and European elections on June 7th. Every year, Tidy Towns adjudication normally takes place over June to August. Some Tidy Towns committees have expressed concern their area may be adversely affected at the time of judging because of the plethora of election hoardings posted around their otherwise pristine towns.
Candidates have seven days after the date of the elections to remove their posters. Cavan-Monaghan Senator Robbie Gallagher has written to Rural Affairs Minister Heather Humhreys, whose department oversees the Tidy Towns contest, asking that adjudication is delayed until after the seven-day period in order to give all entrants a 'level playing field': "A lot of the groups a wee a wee bit concerned that those allowing candidates to put up posters," Senator Gallagher told Northern Sound, "and they're doing nothing wrong but,m when it comes to adjudication they might lose marks. What I'm asking Minister Humphreys to do, I'm asking her to extend adjudication until after June 7th for the adjudication to take place all over the country and, in that caser nobody will have to worry - neither the canvassers putting up the posters or the volunteers will have to worry that their town or village will lose marks by the fact they have posters up."
