Retailers on the Continent clean the areas around their shop fronts carefully, brushing, polishing, sweeping and tidying.
This is especially true of France and Italy, where the clean-up is part of the daily ritual of trading. It seems to be a matter of pride with them.
Contrast this with your average Irish retailer, who seems to believe his or her responsibility ends at the inner door-jamb.
We have rightly acquired the reputation of the most untidy race in Europe. Time after time, Bord Failte surveys have revealed just how horrible our guests from abroad find our filthy practices.
Last year one midlands town, Banagher, threatened to pull out of the Tidy Towns Competition in protest at Government inaction on this issue.
It would appear that we operate on the basis of "imperfect love", i.e., fear of the law, rather than "perfect love", which is doing something because it is right and proper.
Following on the Banagher experience, another midlands town has decided to do something about its truly appalling litter problem. Mullingar Chamber of Commerce has drawn up a code of conduct for its members and has joined in partnership with the local authorities and other parties to clean up the town.
It has to be said that Mullingar is no worse than any other town, but this code is being hailed as a "first" and has already made an impact on what is one of the fastest-growing towns in Ireland.
Late last year the Chamber drew up the voluntary code, in conjunction with Westmeath County Council and the business groups in the town.
Its stated aims were simple - to encourage the business community to take responsibility for litter resulting from their businesses by following the simple action plan stated in the code.
It aimed to provide a partnership for the business people and the council to work together in a co-ordinated fashion towards the goal of freeing Mullingar of litter.
The traders of Mullingar have started to do what the Italians and the French have been doing for years, taking responsibility for the areas outside the front door of their business.
One of the key parts of the code was that businesses should regard the pavement outside their shops as an extension of the shop and keep it as neat as the shop itself.
The local authority increased the frequency of its waste collections over the working day, while the traders undertook to provide suitable litter bins outside their premises, especially the sweet shops and takeaway premises. The code also involves placing special cigarette bins inside larger shops and takeaways and inside the doorways of offices to prevent clients dumping their cigarette ends before an appointment.
Some traders were encouraged to obtain duplicate keys for local authority bins, so they could empty them when they overflowed in the street.
The traders also undertook to present their own rubbish for weekly collection in a neat and orderly manner - and they pledged not to put out bins more than an hour before collection.
Paul O'Reilly, chairman of the chamber's environmental committee, said this week that the programme has been highly successful and this coming weekend it will result in the declaration of Dominick Street as the first "litter-free zone".
"We have been very heartened by the response from business people in the town and we are pushing forward with our plan to make Dominick Street a litter-free zone," he said.
"It was selected because it presented the greatest challenge, with the highest number of pubs and takeaways and also because it is most frequently used by school children.
"It was also the street where businesses demonstrated the greatest participation in keeping the street beautiful and because it is a wide, handsome street, it has great potential." He said the public would be reminded by signs and flags from Saturday next about what is going on and they hoped to extend the zone to other streets in time. He said the chamber had been heartened by the response of the business community, especially by the example shown by the seven takeaway shops in the town.
"There is a realisation that we must all work together in partnership to resolve the problem and this voluntary code of conduct, which we believe is the first in the country, has already delivered fruit," he said.
"We believe that Mullingar is setting an example that might well be followed by the rest of the country."