COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, February 13, 2012

QUESTION NO. 22

QUESTION: Councillor E. Tuffy

To ask the Manager for a report on the current use of the Clondalkin Civic Offices, the services which the residents of the County can access there by way of attendance at the Centre, the number of Council staff working there, and their Departments, the number of councillors who have office accommodation there, and information on the use by outside organisations of the facilities and accommodation of the centre for meetings, and other purposes, and further requests the Manager to investigate the potential for increased use of the Centre for cultural, arts and other public events? 

REPLY:

The Clondalkin Civic Centre is well used by the citizens of Clondalkin, Lucan and Newcastle. 

The Customer Care Centre on the ground floor provides the full range of  services to our customers mirroring the Customer Care services delivered at County Hall, and deals with over 90% of enquiries at first point of contact.  The footfall to the Counter in Clondalkin is approx 1,300 personal visitors per month.   In addition there is a full Payments' Office located within the Civic Offices where payments for Council Rents and Loans, Household Charge, Rates and Water Charges and various fines are made.   On average 250 customers use this payments office per week.   The total footfall is c 2,500 per month.

There are 30 Council Staff located in Clondalkin Civic Centre: Departments operating from within the office include Corporate Services, Community and  IT Spatial Data Team.   The Council's Staff Welfare Officers ( 2 ) use an office for meeting staff and this office is also used for meetings of a committee of retired staff of the Council 

There are also offices for Clondalkin Electoral Area Council Members.  

There is a fully functional Creche located in the Civic Offices which employs 12 staff and caters for a  total of 62 children.

In addition, accommodation is provided to other public service providers and the County Childcare Committee with a staff compliment of 8, rents accommodation on the first floor.

Meeting rooms and interview rooms on the ground floor are used by the Housing Dept staff when meeting customers. Several of the Elected Members also use these rooms to meet constituents.  MABs and the Citizen Advice Bureau also avail of this room to meet clients when it is available.

The Ante room and Chamber on the first floor are used for Area Committee and other Council related business.

 The Concourse of the Centre is used on regular basis for Events, Exhibitions and the Councils Statutory Consultation processes. 

The exhibition space within the Civic Centre is a valuable resource for local groups of Volunteers, Womens Groups and Clubs.   Similarly several open- air events have been held within the curtilage of the building over the past number of years with the support and co-operation of this Council and it is intended to continue to make the facility available for events as oulined above subject to the availability of the required resources.