A SURVEY RELEASED by the Irish Business Against Litter organisation has led to “misleading headlines,” a Dublin business group has said today.

The survey highlighted certain areas of Dublin as “litter black spots” and said the capital was a “blot” on an overall “clean report”.

Responding to the report, the Dublin City BID (Business Improvement District) said it was “wide of the mark” and the problems listed occur mainly in areas outside the city centre, such as Lucan and the Navan Road.

“The streets in the BID area, which is the commercial core city centre, from Grafton Street, are not black spots – in fact, Grafton Street was listed as pristine,” said Richard Guiney, CEO of the Dublin City BID, which represents 2,500 businesses in the city centre.

An Taisce, which conducted the survey, had advised local authorities to “look beyond” the commercial hubs and concentrate on “Dublin as a whole”.

However, the Dublin City BID was established to concentrate on the commercial core of the city.

“We have worked hard with our members and partners to literally clean up the city centre in recent years. Dublin City BID provides a rapid response cleaning service to our members and cleans the streets on a daily basis The purpose of this service is to ensure that any dangerous or unsanitary waste is removed from the BID area within an hour of it being reported,” said Guiney.

We feel that this type of headline grabbing is misleading, irresponsible and helpful to no one. In these challenging times for the retail and hospitality sector, we are working hard to attract tourists and additional customers to the city centre. Misleading headlines such as these are damaging and could set us back years, if left unchecked.

He said that the IBAL survey confirmed that the commercial core had maintained its overall level of cleanliness.

The Dublin City BID works in conjunction with the city council to keep the streets clean.

Read: Killarney hailed as Ireland’s cleanest town but Dublin is a “dirty black spot”>