Sir, - I was walking along the banks of the Grand Canal and there, from the shallow, garbageridden waters, was a face staring back at me. It was a familiar face, a kind face, perhaps the face of Ireland, but somewhat distorted, its colours faded, the cardboard surface ravaged, possibly from the desperate nibbling of radio-active fish. Whose face? I asked myself. Ah! Now I recognise her .. . It's President McAleese, God bless her! Obviously one of the President's campaign billboards blew off a telegraph pole some time ago and landed in the canal, going unnoticed by the hoards of Dublin Corporation workers who clean up after an election. Obviously.
Our Grand Canal is a disgrace - a sewer for tourists to view from the windows of several hotels build along the vista. What does it take to have something done? Money, that's all. And this feel-good Government of ours has plenty of our money.
My suggestion is that the photographers of this green and glorious country should begin taking pictures of the garbage everywhere and start publishing those photographs as postcards. An "Alternative Ireland" theme, if you like. Then they can market those postcards, and perhaps even make a commercial success of them. A slice of reality always sells.
Bord Failte and the plethora of other promoters who present Ireland as a clean and unpolluted land, but do nothing to clean our country up, may then sit up and take notice. For after all, is it not in their interests to have the mess cleaned up?
I lived in New York for eight years before coming home a few years ago. New Yorkers by law must separate glass bottles, aluminium cans, newspapers, and general waste every week. Routine checks are conducted by city wardens outside buildings, and if your garbage bags are found to be in violation of these laws, the building or individual breaking them is fined. Simple as that. Dirty New York? Rubbish! Dirty Dublin? Look for yourself. - Yours, etc., John McCarthy,
Lower Rathmines Road, Dublin 6.