FF pledges to keep Trim poster free

Fianna Fail in Trim has taken a ground-breaking decision not to erect election posters in the centre of the heritage town as a gesture towards Trim"s chances of securing an elusive Tidy Towns award. The four FF town council candidates, Paddy Rispin, Ronan McKenna, Vincent McHugh and Cynthia Peppard, announced the move following an election strategy meeting in preparation for June"s local elections, and have put it up to the other parties to follow suit. Local county councillor, Jimmy Fegan, is already following their lead. 'Trim has worked hard to win the gold medal in the Tidy Towns since our last overall victory in 1984,' Paddy Rispin, who is also a member of Trim Tidy Towns committee, said. 'In the last number of years, we have missed out on awards by only a small number of points. My fellow election candidates, Vincent McHugh, Ronan McKenna and Cynthia Peppard, have also agreed to play their parts by not putting up posters in the town centre in the run-up to the upcoming elections.' Commenting on the move, Trim Tidy Town Committee chairman Brian Heffernan said: 'We"re delighted that the four Fianna Fail candidates have committed to keeping the centre of the town poster free during the election campaign. Poster-ties and posters reduce a town"s overall score in the Tidy Towns competition. This has caused difficulties for us in past years as we have narrowly missed out on awards. We"re calling on all parties to refrain from putting posters up in the centre of town during the election.' The Fianna Fail candidates agreed to the measure after discussions with members of the Tidy Towns Committee. Ronan McKenna hopes that other parties will follow the lead and join the effort to help the town win the gold medal. 'The measure only works if other parties join in the effort. The Tidy Towns competition is an important community effort that every Trim person can contribute to. We"re doing our own part with this important initiative.' Cllr Vincent McHugh added: 'We"re going to be engaging with the Tidy Towns committee to map out the boundaries where the ban on posters would apply. If other parties follow suit, this could be Trim"s first poster-free election in living memory.' With more than 15 candidates running in the town elections, combined with county council and European candidates, the centre of town becomes very cluttered. In political circles the usefulness of posters is hotly debated. 'Posters don"t elect people, results do,' says Cynthia Peppard. 'I believe that Trim people will elect candidates who they know will deliver for them and who understand the challenging times ahead. We believe that Tidy Towns is important for the town. If our move contributes in any way to success for Trim, then we"ll be happy.' Cllr Jimmy Fegan, the Trim-based Fianna Fail member of Meath County Council, has endorsed the decision and has confirmed that he will follow suit by erecting no posters in the town centre. He commended his four colleagues, three of who are running for election for the first time, for showing leadership. Cllr Fegan said that poster campaigns are by far the least effective means of electioneering. 'For generations, political parties have erected them to get a message across, or a particular name promoted. Perhaps in the past when communicative means were not so efficient, and in times when electronic communication was not available there was a place for such cumbersome means of promotion, but hardly nowadays,' he said, adding that the decision of his town council candidate colleagues represents a glimpse of future, steering away from to tardy repetitiveness. 'If we are true to what we all know, pole posters litter an area for weeks, maybe months, have an impact for at most two or three days, are environmentally unfriendly to produce and difficult to recycle,' said Cllr Fegan. He added that Minister John Gormley has indicated that he is considering a pilot scheme to designate a small number of counties as poster-free zones for the June elections, and stated that this is a welcome indication of future trends, of which Trim Fianna Fail is giving a lead. 'Posters are a political form of tribalism, a cheap means of marking out ones patch, an intrusion and often a distraction, and a potential pollutant during manufacture and disposal. They are ultimately as much an insult to the intelligence of the electorate as they are anything else. I will be using no new posters in this campaign,' Cllr Fegan said.