Ireland Daily News – plus a new best practice Ireland case study on the Guidance Manual for Finhal Community Facilities.
HSE named Ireland’s ‘biggest land hoarder’
Good morning LGIU members! Grab your morning brew ☕ as we catch you up on everything happening in the world of local government today.
Best practice from Ireland - Guidance Manual for Fingal Community Facilities.
Article | 4-min read ⌛
With 35 Community Centres and serving one of the fastest growing areas in Ireland, the Fingal County Council Guidance Manual looks to support best practices for voluntary boards of management operating Fingal County Council-owned facilities in the management of their facilities.
PLANNING
HSE named Ireland's 'biggest land hoarder'
An investigation by the Irish Mirror has labelled the Health Service Executive as the country's "biggest land hoarder", with the investigation finding that the health service is sitting on more than 250 vacant buildings across the country - with estimates of their total value ranging from a conservative €100m, to an estate agent's estimate of €400m if sales are held under the right market conditions. Leitrim County Council member Cllr Bernie Linnane said vacant and derelict properties owned by state bodies "are being allowed to rot and fall into disrepair at a time when people desperately need homes". Labour leader Ivana Bacik said: "It beggars belief that the HSE could be holding back such a huge number of empty properties that could be housing people nationwide."
DublinLive Irish Mirror
IHREC calls for new planning rules for Traveller housing
The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) has made a submission to the Department of Housing calling for "consideration" to be given to whether planning rules should be changed such that planning applications for Traveller housing are submitted directly to An Bord Pleanála. IHREC said it is "clear to us" that a number of recommendations from the Department's own Traveller accommodation expert group "have not been addressed adequately or at all" in the draft Planning and Development Bill, suggesting it will fail to address the consistent under-delivery of Traveller accommodation.
Irish Times Online
Major housing scheme proposed in Tralee
Developer Ned O'Shea Construction has submitted a planning application to Kerry County Council for a €70m large-scale residential development of 235 homes on a 9.2 hectare site on Bracker O'Regan Road in Lisloose, Tralee, adjacent to the new Tralee-Fenit Greenway. James O'Shea, managing director, said: "We have been building for communities in Kerry for over 50 years, including houses, churches, hospitals, and schools like Mounthawk Secondary School close to the Lisloose development. This latest project is very exciting, and we believe it is vital to help Tralee on its current growth trajectory."
Irish Examiner Radio Kerry
FINANCE
Dublin councillors back minimum LPT rate
Yesterday's meeting of Dublin City Council saw councillors back a motion from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and People Before Profit to keep Local Property Tax unchanged in the council area, retaining the current rate of minus 15%. Councillors rejected a motion, backed by the Labour Party, Green Party, and the Social Democrats calling for a higher rate to be applied to fund €12.5m of public street improvements and €2.5m for the Area Discretionary Fund. Cllr Tom Brabazon said: "This year, with the cost of living increases, the cost of heating homes adding to the burden of families, [increasing the rate] isn't the thing to do."
Irish Times Online
SERVICES
Fire brigade response times worsened in 2022
New figures published by the National Oversight and Audit Commission have revealed that fire brigade response times worsened last year, with forces reporting that officers arrived on the scene within 10 minutes of an alarm for 52.7% of fires in 2022, down from 56.2% in 2021. In a tenth of cases, the NOAC found, response times were over 20 minutes. Roscommon County Council had the highest proportion of callouts taking more than 20 minutes, at 29%, up from 20.5% the previous year, followed by Galway County Council, at 28.8%. Cork City Council had the lowest proportion of 20+ minute callouts, at 0.9%, followed by Dublin City Council at 2.9%.
Irish Times Online
Persuasive presentation skills
Online | 09:30-12:30 | 10 Oct
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ENVIRONMENT
Energy and environmental groups issue joint call for action
Renewable energy and environmental groups, including Wind Energy Ireland, the Irish Solar Energy Association, the Irish Wildlife Trust, and Friends of the Earth, have issued an unprecedented joint statement calling for Ireland's windfall corporation tax revenue to be used to resource Government departments and State bodies, and strengthen environmental groups, to both address Ireland's biodiversity and climate crises, and to accelerate the delivery of renewable energy to help meet emissions targets.
Irish Times Online
LEISURE & TOURISM
More strategic approach needed for outdoor recreation
Journalist and author Ciaran Mullooly looks at recent State initiatives to support recreation infrastructure, including the €15m Outdoor Recreation Infrastructure Scheme, noting that the pandemic saw outdoor recreation organisations come into their own "during the long days of the pandemic when we all had to stick closer to home because of restrictions and discovered locations we never even knew existed". While welcoming the new funding, he argues that "the funding and ongoing maintenance of outdoor recreation infrastructure projects urgently needs to be much more strategic, coordinated and based on transparent criteria and a clearer definition and assessment of stakeholders' responsibilities".
Irish Examiner
SOCIAL
TikTok seeks permission for 15 CCTV cameras
Social media giant TikTok has sought permission from Dublin City Council to set up 15 new CCTV cameras on the exterior of its Dublin headquarters at the Tropical Fruit Warehouse office complex on Sir John Rogerson's Quay "for additional security and surveillance purposes". Olga Cronin from the Irish Council for Civil Liberties said in response that while CCTV systems "can have legitimate purposes", workers "are entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy. Unless CCTV is used proportionately, it can cause legitimate concerns of unreasonable and unlawful intrusion into the data protection and privacy rights of individuals."
Kildare Nationalist Irish Times Online RTE.ie
WASTE
Councillor calls for action on CCTV to combat dumping
Cllr Ray McAdam has urged Dublin City Council to accelerate the rollout of CCTV as part of efforts to tackle illegal dumping - pointing to figures showing that 320 tonnes of such material has been cleared from the city's streets so far this year. While the Local Government Management Agency is responsible for creating Codes of Practice around CCTV, these have not been completed. "What I'm calling on the Chief Executive to do is by means of emergency motion tonight", Cllr McAdam said, "is to push his shoulder to the real and encourage the LGMA to get those codes of practice in place. Then we as a Council can prepare a scheme to enable us to use CCTV."
DublinLive
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