Candidates in the Cork South-West constituency are counting the cost this weekend after vandals struck overnight and caused thousands of euros worth of damage when they defaced election posters from a large number of candidates by cutting out their faces.
The vandals struck on Thursday and Friday night, defacing posters from Innishannon at the eastern end of the sprawling three seat constituency all the way to outside Clonakilty in the middle of the constituency some 25km away.
Posters were also around Bandon and Kinsale as well as in Ballinadee, Gaggin and Timoleague with candidates from all the main parties and some independents being targeted and their faces carefully cut out.
Among those whose posters were defaced were those of sitting TDs, Holly Cairns of the Social Democrats and Christopher O’Sulllivan of Fianna Fáil as well as those of Fine Gael candidate, Noel O’Donovan, Independent Cllr Alan Coleman and Evie Nevin of the Labour Party.
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Ms Nevin from Dunmanway condemned the vandalism and said, while she would prefer not to use posters and instead use some central notice board for all candidates in each town, she felt compelled to use posters given that other candidates are continuing to use them.
“Last night, someone drove at least 20km and vandalised campaign posters, cutting out the faces on mine and those of other candidates ... I have only 300 posters for the entire constituency – the bare minimum, many of which are reused from the last election.”
Mr Coleman from Bandon also condemned the incident, reckoning that up to 50 of his posters all around Bandon and further west have defaced in the past two nights. He said he is bracing himself for further attacks from the culprit he has named “The Poster Bandit”.
“I’ve had a lot of them to Clonakilty into Timoleague and back into Bandon vandalised with the faces cut out – it was initially done of Thursday night but the Gaggin area outside Bandon was hit last night – it takes a bit of effort to cover that sort of ground.
“And the faces are cut all the way through so somebody put a work into it and those posters don’t come cheap, you could be paying €5 euros or more for a poster and with so many candidates’ posters being targeted, the damage bill won’t be long clocking up.”
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