COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, December 08, 2014

QUESTION NO. 25

QUESTION: Councillor C. O'Connor

To ask the Chief Executive to present to the Council a full report on the success of the Council's efforts to protect our open spaces from Halloween bonfires and will he also confirm if any lessons have been learned which would form part of his plans to deal with this issue in 2015?

REPLY:

During the Halloween season:

• 115 applications were received for the Bulbs Not Bonfires scheme, which was run through the Social Credits Scheme

• A Halloween pack including information and activity sheets was made available to all schools
• 145 students took part in the annual Halloween Recycle workshop
• Safe Halloween talks took place 2 schools (Adamstown & Neilstown) in conjunction with Dublin Fire Brigade, Dublin Bus and members of An Garda Siochana.
• 209 passes were provided to social credits applicants for access to the Civic Amenity Site
• Door to door WEEE collection prior to Halloween by CCCRI

There were 348 bonfires across the county this Halloween, which represents a reduction of approximately 30 bonfires on the 2013 figure. The reduction in bonfires is for the most part due to the substantial effort by the Council to deter the activity through the range of measures outlined above combined with a significant effort in removing bonfire material in the run up to Halloween. 

As with previous years, the financial costs of the cleanups, in the region of €50, 000, could well have been applied to more productive purposes.