A pensioner has become embroiled in a bitter dispute with an aide of social and family affairs minister Mary Hanafin over his refusal to respect a local agreement not to hang election posters in a scenic Dublin village.

The stand-off has led to a war of words between Sandycove's Tidy Towns chairwoman Margaret Browne and local election candidate Peter O'Brien – the only politician accused of disrespecting the deal.

Browne claims that all of the other politicians have honoured the agreement relating to lampposts in the village area, but O'Brien, Hanafin's parliamentary assistant, told the Sunday Tribune that the whole dispute is the result of one person's "agenda".

It is understood that every other politician in the south Dublin area has upheld a verbal agreement that the villages of Sandycove, Dalkey and Glasthule would retain a limited number of lampposts for the hanging of potted plants next week.

"It's just five poles in the village. It's not the town or the beach – it's just five poles and they [O'Brien's camp] have posters on three of them," Browne said.

"The villages all agreed with the candidates that they wouldn't put up a poster on the lampposts where the flowers are going to go up."

However, O'Brien said that he and his team had received no such requests.

"This one person is an estranged member of Fianna Fáil. There is a person here who had been a member of a local cumann and seems to have taken exception to a number of posters," he said. "There is no Tidy Towns committee except for this person who has taken this on her own agenda."

O'Brien insists that other candidates have hung posters "quite close to" the lampposts in question.

A representative of O'Brien's went to visit Browne to discuss the matter but said the posters would not come down.

Tom O'Higgins, a Fine Gael councillor living in Sandycove, confirmed that those running in the area had agreed not to hang posters in designated villages. "Certainly it is something that has been, I understand, agreed between the candidates that we would desist from putting posters in Dalkey, Glasthule and Sandycove," he said. "It is surprising that not all candidates are complying with it."

Browne – a retired local community worker – said she had called an emergency meeting with Tidy Towns members last week as a result of the stand-off and vehemently denied she was the only person involved.

"How could I do it all myself? All in all there would be about seven or eight [volunteers] who would be out cleaning and that.

"And on the big cleaning days there would be quite a few more."

She also criticised O'Brien for re-hanging his controversial posters after they had been knocked down in heavy winds. "He made it clear that they weren't going to take them down. I can't understand that," she said.

However, O'Brien said he would be happy to remove the posters if any flowers were hung up.