All Things Ireland – What will March hold for Irish local government?

In Kilkenny, we saw new plans published by the OPW on the redevelopment of Abbey Quarter. Working with the National Monuments Service in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the OPW is supporting Kilkenny County Council in the preparation of a Conservation Management Plan for the historic structures on the Abbey Quarter site.

The journal.ie reports that the Association of Irish Local Government (AILG) is to raise concerns about the Planning and Development Bill 2023 and that it will diminish the “primacy” of councillors in the planning process.

Limerick Twenty Thirty and the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, part of the National Treasury Management Agency announced the creation of a unique joint venture partnership to finance the development of the One Opera Square project in Limerick city centre.

On Friday, the Homelessness report for January 2023 was released by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. You can find the local authority breakdown here.

The Irish Times showed this week that over the last two years, local authorities are paying private building contractors considerably more for social housing. With increases nearing 50% in some cases, you can read more from the Irish Times here.

Finally, developed by the LGMA in collaboration with the local authorities and supported by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, currently, Carlow, Clare, Galway County, Kilkenny, Laois, Limerick, Louth, Mayo, Sligo, Tipperary, Waterford and Westmeath Councils are taking applications and submissions on the site.

In Wexford town, Kafe Konnect offers a new social café which will provide employment to those who have found it difficult to access the labour market as a result of prior criminal convictions, or who are in recovery from addiction.

46 applicant groups have been successful under Stage 1 of the 2023-2027 LEADER programme, a community-led programme operating a locally-led, bottom-up, approach to meeting the needs of rural communities and businesses.

A new national awareness campaign is encouraging community groups and volunteers to join their local Public Participation Network (PPNs), which offers a crucial way for local authorities to connect with community groups around the country and allow people to have greater involvement in how government decisions affect their communities.

Tipperary County Council will be hosting a number of Drop In Clinics to explain and promote the Early Payment Scheme for small and medium size businesses as savings of 6% up to a maximum of €600 can be achieved by making payment before the 31st July 2023 or by making payment by Direct Debit.

Delivered in partnership with Dublin City Council’s Smart Dublin programme, Google’s Project Air View initiative measured the air quality on Dublin’s streets over a period of 16 months finding Dublin’s air quality to be “good”.

The Association of Irish Local Government (AILG) 2023 Annual Conference has now launched and will take place on 19th and 20th April 2023 in Hotel Kilkenny, College Rd, Sugarloafhill, Kilkenny. Click here to register and more!

Following funding from The Arts Department of Wexford County Council via their Creative Communities Scheme, over 876 traditional song recordings from the early 1990s have been saved from digital deterioration and made available for free to the public.

Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin, has made two new appointments to the Board of the Abbey Theatre – Risteard Sheridan and Nicholas Basden.

Finally, €161,161 is to be allocated to each county for 2023 Creative Ireland initiatives (€236,161 for the four Dublin authorities). Between 2017-22 Creative Ireland allocated €29.8 million to support thousands of local authority initiatives that have unlocked a national ecosystem of creativity. Click here to find out more!

Big news this week was the 2 new programmes focusing on supporting Irish innovation and research launched – Innovators Initiative and KT Boost. With funding of over €63 million, the managing authorities for the ERDF in Ireland are the Northern & Western Regional Assembly and the Southern Regional Assembly.

€81 million has been announced in once-off funding for voluntary and community providers. While local authorities cannot access this funding, those eligible include organisations delivering health and wellbeing services around the country (including where delivered through Local Authorities under Sláintecare).

Centre-stage in NI this week is the 2023 NILGA conference. Held in Omagh on February 23rd, the theme for this year’s conference is ‘Responding to Future Challenges’ and will focus on how local government should innovate and collaborate across all sectors to achieve its ambitions. You can find the delegate list and conference agenda here.

While Protocol politics deliberated over the weekend, despite the PM’s last-minute flight to Belfast, households in NI are facing a record rise in rates bills as councils attempt to balance their books. With Belfast City Council‘s 7.99% rise the highest so far, the below table from the BBC breakdowns the rates rises across NI’s 11 Councils.