Scrapping election posters would be problematic for democracy and younger people, one councillor has claimed.
Fianna Fáil's Shelly Herterich-Quinn was speaking following calls for a ban in the name of climate action from Galway County Council this week.
Cllr Herterich-Quinn told Newstalk Breakfast such a move would be unfair.
"If you're a first-time candidate and you are stopped from postering... there is a cohort of people that will just not know who you are, what you stand for, how to get in touch with you," she said
"There are the very, very young and the very, very old who may not know what's going on from one end of the year to the next.
"I think it's really, really important that we still poster.
"I know in the name of climate action people are thinking, 'Get rid of these plastics, ban these plastics' and we're trying to reduce these plastics.
"I'm all for that - but I do think if you can't see visually that there is something important going on, by seeing a number of posters around the place, that can be a problem for the very young and for democracy".
Limit per candidate
Cllr Herterich-Quinn said there are better options out there.
"I do agree that if there was a limit on the number of posters per candidate, that might go some way towards it - but also the materials that are used in the making of the poster," she said.
"We all use this plastic thing called corriboard at the moment, and if there was something else that we could use that might be more climate-friendly.
"It is tricky - you'll have people taking down your posters, you'll have people defacing your posters".
Cllr Herterich-Quinn said social media can't replace the reach of posters, especially in rural areas.
"If you're in rural Ireland now - in my area it would be quite vast - there's 33,000 people in the catchment area," she said.
"You're going out to very rural roads and places where people may not be on social media.
"We still have that cohort of people, the silver surfers, who maybe are not on social media - and the very, very young who wouldn't be looking at Facebook," she added.
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