Cork City Litter Wardens: 2 Fines A Day?

Cork Politics published this a couple weeks ago*:

City council issued 1,565 litter fines in 2008

NEW figures unveiled by Cork City Council have revealed that the local authority issued 1,565 on the spot fines in 2008. A total of 670 of these were issued for offences committed at The Fairfield and Clashduv Road bring sites. The figure represents a substantial increase on the number of fines issued in 2007, something which the council attributes to a new pilot programme introduced last year whereby CCTV cameras were installed by Cork City Council at the bring sites at The Fairfield, Fairhill and Clashduv Road, Togher. Under The 1997 to 2003 Litter Pollution Acts fines are issued for any incidents of dumping .

The wife reckons there’s about 240 working days in the year, including annual leave. I emailed and asked how many wardens there are, and apparently there’s 3 wardens and 1 supervisor. Even if you assume the supervisor doesn’t issue fines, according to my (admittedly terrible) maths…

1565 / 240 = 6.5 / 3 = 2.16

…the Cork wardens are issuing just over 2 fines a day each? That can’t be right surely? Snowed under with paperwork? According to minutes from 2005 there’s more people to help when needed – 14 back then – so surely not. Is there some other kind of work the wardens do? Seriously, it can’t just be 2 tickets a day like!

* I can’t check because for some bizarre reason their posts aren’t dated!

3 Responses

  1. They should go down to Myrtleville, plenty of rubbish down there unfortunately. Wrecks the beach.

    Also, 670 of those tickets were given out at bring sites, probably from people dumping rubbish at overflowing bins.
    So, a large minority of the fines handed out were in fact easy catches, and not due to patrols in urban areas.

  2. I saw that. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation, hands tied by silly bureacracy or something, but right now all I can think is: What the hell are these guys doing all day?