COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

south dublin county council crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, January 14, 2013

QUESTION NO.9

QUESTION: Councillor D. Looney

In congratulating the Council staff involved in the upgrade of the Council website, to ask the Manager to outline the plans to further develop the Council's presence online, in particular regarding (a) services for users in the Irish language, (b) easier access to Councillor details based on mapping and (c) identification of departments where material is either outdated or incomplete; and to make a statement on the matter.

REPLY:

SDCC is continuing to engage customers and citizens effectively through social media. Public information campaigning, media relations and crisis management have all been transformed by social media and the role social media plays enabling the Council to respond will increase in importance and prominence into the future. SDCC is now actively engaging with a fast-growing social media savvy population, staying updated on the public’s needs and opinions and thereby responding with effective policies.

The Council now has in excess of 3,300 Twitter followers with more than 1,700 Facebook accounts ‘liking’ the Council's page and receiving updates.

Regarding the specific points raised in this Question:-

A) As per the Irish Language Scheme of South Dublin County Council, we are legally obliged to have an Irish homepage and an Irish version of landing pages of sections and other static information. This is currently being developed and will have to be completed within the lifetime of our second Irish Language scheme – 2012-2015. This is an ongoing project, with the homepage 'as Gaeilge' currently being developed. Rollout will continue throughout 2013.

B) It is intended to provide a map-based interface to show the five Electoral Areas within South Dublin County. This map based view of the Electoral Areas will also provide a facility to search by address to ascertain the Electoral Area of any address in the County as well as allowing users to click on the map in order to identify the Electoral Area.  Both of these search methods will also return the representatives for each Local Electoral Area. It is envisaged that this functionality will be available in early Q2 2013.

C) As part of the process of moving to the new Corporate website www.sdcc.ie, all Departments carried out a comprehensive review of the content being brought forward in order to ensure it was relevant, comprehensive and up-to-date. This review will continue over the coming months as there is a very significant body of work involved in this process with further development, refinement and updating of content necessary.