As a nation of slobs, we badly need to be taught a lesson

It was heartening to read this week that estate agents Sherry Fitzgerald have been prosecuted 106 times since the introduction of the 1997 Litter Pollution Act for erecting sale signs on public rather than private property.

This is nothing personal against Sherry Fitzgerald. It may well be the case, as a company spokesman claimed, that they were just being made an example of; and that they only persisted in the practice (and how) until other estate agents were treated the same way. Indeed, it will have come as a surprise to many people that estate agency signs officially constitute litter (albeit, depending on where they are).

But the battle had to start somewhere, and it can't be any harm that it started with the sector most intimately bound up with the current litter-intensive boom. It seems only right that we should regulate the "for sale" signs, at a time when almost everything is (for sale). It only remains for the authorities to come after the rest of us now; which is what they're promising.

Not surprisingly the economic success hasn't lessened the national tendency to litter. I saw an unforgettable image of the new Ireland in Dublin last St Patrick's Day, after the biggest, brashest parade the city had ever seen, and on a day when even the weather conspired in the idea that, as a people, we were on the up.

The parade itself was somewhat pagan in theme, but it was nothing compared to what it left in its wake. This was litter on an epic scale, even by Irish standards. And after the last marchers had passed College Green, a Northern evangelist stood ankle-deep in the rubbish and started preaching, to no one in particular.

When I briefly interviewed him (in the guilty hope of some fundamentalist colour for a mood-of-the-parade piece) he told me he was from Armagh and that he had virtually risen from his sick bed to get to Dublin. The thought of "half-a-million souls" up for grabs at the parade was too hard to resist, he admitted. And as he stood there, looking like an Old Testament preacher surveying the aftermath of a particularly wild weekend in Sodom, you had to agree: he'd come to the right place.

But the righteous (in this sense the people responsible for trying to keep Ireland tidy) may yet triumph, and if they do, it will be by enforcement rather than persuasion. We are a nation of slobs, from dumping old cars and washing machines in bogs to urinating in city doorways (I saw a young guy doing it in the middle of the street in Temple Bar on Saturday night - another example of the new self-confidence; although, in fairness to him, there weren't many unoccupied doorways) and we're not going to change without a fight.

Enforcement does at last seem to be creeping up on us, however. For example, the number of local authority litter wardens has risen dramatically in the first two years of the 1997 Act, which was inherited by the Government but is being implemented with a vengeance by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey.

On-the-spot fines for littering - £25 now, but due to quadruple under the Minister's plans - rose from 981 in the six months before the legislation to 4,388 for the second half of last year. Only half had been paid by December 31st, admittedly, but there were also some 400 successful prosecutions in 1998, almost double that of the previous year. And the department says the effort has intensified throughout 1999.

In Dublin, there are now 20 litter wardens - still not exactly an army but impressive compared with two in 1997 and 14 last year; and having sorted out the estate agent menace, the corporation is targeting offences by the public - simple littering of streets, putting out refuse bags on non-collection days, and so on.

There's no sign that we, as a people, are undergoing a paradigm shift on the litter issue, even if there was a far-higher-than-expected participation in An Taisce's "National Spring Clean" operation last April, when 1,700 groups took part. But enforcement is at least having an effect on our leaders. Dublin Corporation did not have to fine any of the political parties after the recent elections (although a spokesman admitted that, had a few days grace not been given to get the posters down, the fines could have amounted to "thousands of pounds").

There are some things that any amount of enforcement are unlikely to change. Chewing gum, for instance. The grey, polka-dot design of old chewing gum on stone has become so characteristic of Dublin city paving that it may soon have to be incorporated in the Civic Offices' stationery. You hardly notice it now on the older streets, but it is depressing to see new paving developing spots within hours of being opened to the public. A beautiful granite surface is being unveiled in sections in Henry Street and Mary Street, and even as it emerges, it is being christened by the gum-chewers, stone by stone.

It would be a bit extreme to suggest banning gum, although Singapore - characteristically - wouldn't agree. It did just that in 1992, after the substance started getting stuck in the doors of subway trains. Importation and sale is still an offence, although possession for one's own use is not. Of course, you're liable to be fined for dropping gum in either Dublin or Singapore, but if you had to do it in one, you'd be strongly advised to choose Dublin.

In any case, the corporation doesn't pretend to much optimism about catching and fining a critical mass of gum-droppers and, instead, hopes to steam-clean the problem with the next generation of "green machines".

Speaking of which, it has always been a fond hope of the litter-weary that a new generation of environmentalists will, one day, graduate from schools to be a good example to their parents. But despite the combined efforts of teachers, the Department, An Taisce and the local authorities, there's still no sign of it, and most councils will tell you that their worst litter blackspots occur between the schools and the nearest sweet-shops. So the future, like it or not, is more enforcement.

I haven't even mentioned tourists, although repeated surveys and even more-repeated letters to The Irish Times have shown that litter enjoys a particularly high place in their hierarchy of complaints. Of course, there is also a small but growing body of opinion here that tourism has grown as far as it should be allowed to, and that in this context the local squalor is one of the few weapons left in the fight to stop Bord Failte.

Regardless of the tourist issue and for all the apathy and cynicism about the subject of litter, most people are capable of feeling shame when, every now and again, they look around them and see the state of the place. And even if we're not quite ready to change, we are probably ready (in a catholic sort of way) to feel we deserved it, if we get caught.